Report targets student drinking

STUDENTS who want to organise a party could be made to declare it at the mairie or prefecture.

The idea is one that is being put forward in a report on student drinking submitted today to Higher Education Minister Valérie Pécresse by the head of the Poitiers education authority, Martine Daoust.

Ms Daoust, a pharmacology professor, is an expert on alcohol and drug dependence. She has been carrying out interviews in universities.

She says it is time to “break the code of silence” surrounding a “degrading” culture of excessive drinking. “Some student parties are no-go areas,” she said.

Ms Pécresse commissioned the report after an increasing number of headline stories about rapes and suicides following student drinking bouts.

Student parties could have to be declared, the report suggests, as is already required for organisers of “les rave-party”. The declaration would include giving the organiser’s name, the location and details of measures to minimise security or alcohol abuse risks.

Officials could be sent in to check that no rules are being broken during student events, such as the ban on the use of “open bars” (where a person pays an entry fee, then drinks as much as he wants).

Training modules about alcohol abuse could also be introduced into degrees, the report recommends.

Despite increasing concerns about young people’s binge-drinking in France, the levels have yet to reach those of the UK. The report cites a survey which showed that 76 per cent of British 15- to 16-year-olds have been drunk at least once, but only 46 per cent have been in France.

Denmark topped the survey of European countries, at 89 per cent, and Portugal came lowest, with 36 per cent.

Photo: © Yuri Arcurs - Fotolia.com