If he takes stock of the countries which have legalized cannabis in order to open the debate in France in the documentary he co-directed with Antoine Robin, entitled Cannabis and broadcast on April 2 on France 5, Mathieu Kassovitz is also concerned about alcohol consumption in our “country of drinkers”. A justified fear since he experienced it up close: “My mother died of alcoholism. »
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The director of Hate explained on the set of C to you that this addiction had killed Chantal Remy, screenwriter and editor for the cinema, in “ten years”. A terrible decade, to the point that if he “put that in a movie, you [lui] you would say that it is not possible. Prevention among young people is therefore essential, but Mathieu Kassovitz also believes that questioning, on a larger scale, is imperative. The reason for this is the ease with which alcohol can be obtained in France.
READ ALSO Mathieu Kassovitz, the versatile artist “Alcohol, we give you information about what’s in it, but it’s accessible to everyone,” he laments. Be it “at any cafe”, “at any gas station in the middle of the highway you can find alcohol”.
A lack of will in the face of the lobby
Indeed, while drunk driving is responsible for 30% of fatal accidents, it is possible to obtain it at a service station between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. It is only outside this time slot that sales are prohibited. Legislation which is not specific to France. In the United Kingdom, for example, the sale of alcohol in motorway service stations has been permitted again since 2013.
For Mathieu Kassovitz, “it’s not just a story of getting high, it’s a story of philosophy.” A position that must be shared by the National Academy of Medicine, which notably sounded the alarm in 2019. “For the first time since the Second World War, alcohol consumption is no longer decreasing in France. This is a major defeat for public health,” the academy wrote in a press release. And to point the finger at “the pressure” exerted by the “alcohol lobby” which led to “the continued weakening of the Évin law […] to the point of authorizing advertising on the Internet, a media medium particularly popular with young people.”
A “collusion between the highest summit of the State and the alcohol lobby against the interests of public health”, denounced the professor of public health and member of the National Academy of Medicine Gérard Dubois, on Europe 1.
