FRANCE: Drink Up

A new wine harvest was coming on, and the vats of France were already sloshing full of a billion-liter surplus of wine. The country was in danger of becoming one vast cavern of undrunk wine. Last week, sensitive to the pressure of the winegrowers, who are France’s most powerful farm bloc, the government set out to soak up the surplus.

The Cabinet voted to increase its buying up of wine and distribute it in weekly rations of about a quart apiece to the country’s “economically feeble,” i.e., paupers, sick people over 60, everyone over 65. The Cabinet also recommended that the Defense Ministry increase by 50% the army’s ration, now a pint of rough red pinard a day. In doing so, the government neatly canceled out former Premier Mendés-France’s campaign to cut down on winebibbing among the soldiery. By Mendés-France’s order, the serving of milk is obligatory at army messes: soldiers will continue to fight France’s dairy overproduction by downing a glass of milk instead of coffee each morning. At noon and at dinner they will cope with the wine surplus.