Gone are the days of popping corks to mark a retirement, a transfer, or even to celebrate a sales team’s good results. EDF, France’s electric utility company, will no longer cover the cost of alcohol consumed by employees during events with colleagues outside of work. Following a debate, the company’s executive committee decided to ban alcohol consumption “on all company sites” as of January 1, as employee representatives learned in an internal email.
Dry January, a month of abstinence that has gained popularity in France since 2020, is now part of a broader movement in 2026 to reduce alcohol consumption in the workplace. Hervé Martini, an occupational physician and secretary general of the Addictions France association, noted that “almost all workplace cafeterias stopped serving alcoholic beverages long ago.” “Now, the only real questions left concern company parties and meals held outside the office,” he said.
“We do not have quantitative data on how workplace practices are evolving,” said a spokesperson for the French interministerial Mission for combating Drugs and Addictive Behaviors (MILDECA). But the ESPER network, launched in 2021 by MILDECA to encourage both public and private employers to support addiction prevention, has been expanding.
You have 77.21% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
