In my lifetime, the French government have got policy on alcohol right while, in the UK, we’ve mostly got it wrong. This is a useful comparison, as France isn’t a million miles away and as a nation they’re not that different, genetically . People in France do still drink over the recommended units. But they drink a lot less than they used to. When I was a student, it was rare to see someone in hospital in the UK with liver cirrhosis. But not in France, which is why we called it the French disease. Now, French cirrhosis rates are lower than the UK’s, because their government has acted in the
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