Emmanuel Macron receives a “personality of the year” award for his commitment to wine

The event might seem anecdotal, but it is well on the agenda of the President of the Republic. This Thursday, January 6 at 6.30 p.m., Emmanuel Macron will be at the award ceremony for the personality of the year by the Revue du vin de France. Indeed, the latter decided to reward the Head of State for his “its constant commitment to wine and its culture”.

“We wish to salute the action of the President of the Republic at a time when his term of office is coming to an end”, explained Denis Saverot, editorial director of the Revue du vin de France, stressing that, “for the first time in decades, a President of the Republic has declared loud and clear that he loves wine”.

“I am very proud of this extraordinary French wealth”, declared the head of state. “The wine is the demonstration of the fact that to be French, one does not have to choose to be closed […] You are rooted who thirst to embrace the world “, he greeted, recalling the hard knocks suffered by the industry, from the disputes with the Trump administration to the frost of the year 2021.

It is true that during his mandate, Emmanuel Macron has always taken care to spare this sector, to which he has regularly proclaimed his love. Not yet a candidate and campaigning for the 2017 presidential election, he declared: “I was raised by my grandparents who had this formula: red wine is an antioxidant. There was no guilt”, ensuring that a meal without wine was “A little sad. Wine brightens up a meal. It is the possibility of discovering new aromas, new sensations. Obviously, it must be done in moderation. But it is part of our civilization.” In February 2018, shortly before the Salon de l’Agriculture, he told journalists: “Me, I drink wine for lunch and dinner”. Much more than what the health authorities recommend.

Once at the Elysee Palace, Emmanuel Macron assures us that he will not toughen the Evin law restricting advertising for alcoholic beverages. “As long as I am president, there will be no amendment to harden the Evin law”, he says. The white enthusiast distinguishes between strong alcohols and beer with which “youth are getting drunk at high speed”, representing “a scourge of public health”, and wine.

Reassuring statements for the wine world, less for health professionals and addictologists. Already in May 2017, the latter were worried about the appointment of Audrey Bourolleau as agricultural advisor to Emmanuel Macron (she is no longer part of the president’s cabinet to this day, editor’s note). When she arrived at the Élysée, she had been the general delegate of the Vin et Société lobbying body since 2012. Eleven associations of addictologists and six public health experts were then moved by a risk. “that the agricultural and wine-growing policy be done to the detriment of an effective policy to fight against harmful alcohol consumption”. In February 2018, the prospect of leaving the possibility for the wine industry to prevent alcohol consumption, according to a wish of the president, made them jump.