Wine to be banned in French office drinks parties
France on Thursday allowed employers to ban wine from the workplace. The traditional office drinks party might be a thing of the past.
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So far wine was exempted from the list of alcoholic drinks that employers could ban.
But the labour ministry, which issued the directive, said that wine could "threaten the security and the physical and mental well-being of workers."
The decree comes as the ministry pointed out a study by the Institut Gustave Roussy - a world leading cancer institute - saying that alcohol abuse causes around 49,000 deaths in France.
Drinking wine is a mainstay of French gastronomic culture but consumption has declined recently as beer has become more popular.
According to the study, the French drink about 27g of alcohol per day, or 2.7 glasses.
An American study revealed in 2013 that the United States outstripped France in the consumption of wine, with 29 million hectolitres drunk, in other words one million more than in France.
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