Question asked by Bastien on April 12,
Hello,
You ask us about the promotion by France Télévisions of the Amstel Gold Race cycle race broadcast on public service channels. Amstel, the circuit’s first sponsor, is a Dutch beer brand belonging to the Heineken group. Written black on white on television screens, the name of the race has raised eyebrows with some Internet users who wonder about its legality with the Evin law.
The Evin law of January 10, 1991 provides that any sponsorship operation having as its object or effect propaganda or advertising, direct or indirect, in favor of alcoholic beverages is prohibited. Equally, “any sponsorship operation is prohibited when its object or effect is propaganda or publicity, direct or indirect, in favor of alcoholic beverages”. In other words, in France, it is forbidden for a sporting event to be sponsored by a brand of alcohol or tobacco. It is therefore impossible to name it.
A law specific to France
However, the Evin law only applies in France. It is therefore not valid for competitions outside the country. Apart from a few hectometres traveled in Belgium this year, the Amstel Gold Race takes place in the Netherlands, where legislation does not prohibit the sponsorship of an alcohol brand.
Amstel Gold Race, Guinness Six Nations, Heineken Champions Cup… Their common point: these European or international competitions are not played, or not exclusively, in France. Legislation on alcohol-related sponsorship being different from one country to another, the French media are forced to adapt their broadcasting.
The French Public Authority for the Regulation of Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) has drafted a code of good conduct for the broadcasting of sporting events including billboards for alcoholic beverages. “Multinational demonstrations, the images of which are intended to be broadcast in a large number of countries, cannot be considered as primarily targeting the French public and can therefore be freely retransmitted by French television channels even if advertisements in favor of alcoholic beverages would come to appear on the screen, specifies the code. French broadcasters, when they broadcast images of which they do not control the shooting conditions, cannot be suspected of complacency with regard to the litigious advertisements.
On the other hand, there is no precise rule for the audiovisual sector concerning the broadcasting of a competition whose name contains a reference to a brand of alcohol. “It is complicated to change the name of an event that takes place abroad, because there is no European harmonization on alcohol-related advertising, specifies Franck Lecas, legal manager of the France Addictions association, specialist in the Evin law. But the way in which it is evoked in France is something else.
French adaptations
Contacted by CheckNews, Arcom stresses that, for the Amstel Gold Race cycle race, it is the very title of the competition which “ask” (the naming). This broadcast will be the subject of a “verification” a posteriori, like all the programs broadcast on the antennas. In this specific case, the control will focus more broadly on the compliance of the retransmission with the Evin law.
French regulations have already led to adaptations for certain sports competitions. This is the case of the Guinness Six Nations tournament, which is played in different European countries. When the matches are organized in France, the mention “Guinness”, from the name of the brand of beer, disappears. Last March, when France won the tournament, along the stadium and on the podiums, the message displayed was “Six Nations greatness”, with the same typography as the brand of beer.
“A brand that sponsors an international tournament is forced to adapt when part of the competition takes place in France. She must find an “alibi”. It’s a circumvention strategy., explains Franck Lecas. To date, only three countries in Europe prohibit the sponsorship of sporting events by brands selling alcohol: France, Portugal and Malta.