by Sophie Kevany

Bordeaux’s mayor has written a letter to France’s prime minister demanding that laws currently making it illegal for wine and other alcoholic drinks websites to exist, be changed.

Mayor and former prime minister, Alain Juppé, said in his letter the need to communicate was decisive, and France was the only wine producing country to ban the Internet as a legal medium for publicising wine and other alcoholic drinks. “It seems necessary to solve these issues as soon as possible given the competitive context in which our businesses are evolving,” Juppé said. He also reminded the prime minister, François Fillon, that the wine sector accounts for €11bn worth of sales annually, including €6.7bn in foreign exports.

News of the letter, sent on 26 September, came just prior to the unconfirmed collapse of the French government’s working group on alcohol publicity and the Internet. The group, charged with finding a solution to the publicity problem, was unable to reach a consensus, a source close to the negotiations said.

The source, who did not wish to be named, said it was now up to France’s president and prime minister to retrieve a solution from the four proposed by different members of the group.

Of these, the most restrictive, which was leaked to the press last July, would effectively ban wine and other drinks related sites by applying the same limitations as pornographic sites, namely the right to exist only at certain times of the day, and with no external links allowed to show the sites exist.

The least restrictive proposes the Internet be included as an approved medium for alcoholic drinks publicity, within the limits that currently apply to the press, as set out by France’s 1991 Evin Law.

The only addition would be the banning of all alcohol publicity from sites aimed at young people.

No one in the government could be reached for comment.