France close to banning dangerously thin models
France moved a step closer today to a legal ban on ultra-thin fashion models.
The lower house of parliament passed a bill that would make it illegal for anyone, including magazines, advertisers and websites, to publicly incite extreme thinness.
The National Assembly approved the bill in a series of votes, after the legislation won unanimous support from the ruling conservative UMP party. It goes to the Senate in the coming weeks.
Fashion industry experts said that, if passed, the law would be the strongest of its kind anywhere. Leaders in French couture are opposed to the idea of legal boundaries on beauty standards.
The bill was the latest and strongest of measures proposed after the 2006 anorexia-linked death of a Brazilian model prompted efforts throughout the international fashion industry to address the repercussions of using ultra-thin models.
Conservative Valery Boyer, who introduced the proposed law, argued that encouraging anorexia or severe weight loss should be punishable in court.
Doctors and psychologists treating patients with anorexia welcomed the government's efforts to fight self-inflicted starvation, but warned that its link with media images remains hazy.
French politicians and fashion industry members signed a non-binding charter last week on promoting healthier body images. Spain banned banned ultra-thin models from catwalks in 2007.
Ms Boyer said such measures did not go far enough, however.
Her bill has mainly drawn attention to pro-anorexic websites that give advice on how to eat an apple a day - and nothing else.
Ms Boyer insisted the legislation was much broader and could, in theory, be used against many facets of the fashion industry.
It would give judges the power to imprison and fine offenders up to €30,000 if found guilty of "inciting others to deprive themselves of food" to an "excessive" degree.
Judges could also sanction those responsible for a magazine photo of a model whose "excessive thinness … altered her health", she said.
Ms Boyer said she was focusing on women's health, although the bill applies to models of both sexes. The French Health Ministry says most of the 30,000 to 40,000 people with anorexia in France are women.
Didier Grumbach, president of the influential French Federation of Couture, made no secret of his opposition.
"Never will we accept in our profession that a judge decides if a young girl is skinny or not skinny," he said. "That doesn't exist in the world, and it will certainly not exist in France."
