Chapitre 7. Quel cadre juridique pour la publicité digitale sur les aliments non sains adressée aux enfants ?

The digital advertising environment influences children’s food choices in a context of over-representation of fatty, sweet and salty products. Restricting this influence proves complex, given the variety and novelty of the marketing techniques used, subject to legal regimes that combine traditional branches of market law with new rules specific to the digital environment. Despite the assertion of children’s rights in relation to the digital environment, minors and their health are not sufficiently protected. Few rules exist (ban on concealed advertising, health messages, targeting of children’s advertising, etc.), and none really limits children’s exposure to digital advertising for nutritionally unbalanced foods.

The Regulation of Alcohol Marketing in France: The Loi Evin at Thirty.

When adopted in 1991, the French Loi Evin was pioneering as one of the first in the world to regulate alcohol marketing as extensively. This short contribution assesses whether it remains fit for purpose over 30 years later. To this effect, it assesses its main provisions, considers the legislative amendments that have ensued as well as the extensive interpretation French courts have given of its scope, before concluding that the prospects for its revisions are limited in the near future.

Public health lessons from the French 2012 soda tax and insights on the modifications enacted in 2018.

In 2016, the World Health Organization officially recommended sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxation as a strategy to reduce purchases, stimulate product reformulation and generate revenues for health-related programmes. Four years before, France had been one of the first countries to tax SSBs. However, the design of this tax was not considered optimal: its rate was flat, low, identical for SSBs and artificially-sweetened drinks containing no added sugars, and its initial public health justification was set aside in favour of budgetary concerns. In 2018, a new taxation scheme was enacted. Integrated in the Social Security Finance Bill, the tax on SSBs is now linearly indexed to the quantity of added sugars in the drink. In this article, we summarize the lessons learnt from the 2012 soda tax and offer insights on the potential public health benefits of the new tax enacted in 2018. A multidimensional framework aimed at gathering evidence about SSB taxation for public health drove our rational so that we address: (1) the soda tax policy-change process; (2) its impact on price and purchases; (3) the consumer receptiveness to the tax and; (4) its legal framework. We also discuss the potential application of the tax to other foods/nutrients.