PARIS — "Too thin" may soon be defined in France by judges who would be asked to enforce new legislation aimed at websites, blogs and fashion advertising that encourage eating disorders among girls.
The fate of the legislation will be decided in coming weeks by the French Senate after it was passed Tuesday by the National Assembly. The measure is backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.
Fines of up to $47,000 and a two-year prison term would be imposed on people who compromise a person's health by encouraging individuals through advertisements, products or methods of losing weight to aspire to "excessive thinness." It would be left to judges to evaluate what that means in each case. The fine and prison sentencing would be higher if a person ends up at risk of death or dies after following a restrictive eating regimen.
In this epicenter of haute couture, fashion editors and designers were reacting with care to this legislation that has been broadly directed at them.
"Maybe a law, as a cautionary warning, can help with change if blogs about anorexia incite young women to be dangerously skinny and if models look too scary on the runway," said Michelle Fitoussi, a columnist for the French Elle. "We have to be vigilant about that."
But she had a hard time imagining French authorities busting into dressing rooms before Paris fashion shows and handcuffing stylists and designers as they tuck scrawny models into their clothes.
"We have to be aware in all parts of society, not just in fashion, to stop girls from being on a very hard diet," she said. "Anorexia is a very real and complicated disease. Even the experts don't completely understand it."
French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier was quoted in the newspaper Liberation last week similarly questioning how the law would get at the complex issues behind extreme dieting and thinness. "You don't solve that kind of problem with laws but with understanding," he said.
But lawmakers and government officials have said explicitly that they want the trendsetters, fashion media and advertisers involved in this battle against a distorted view of health and beauty. Last week leaders of the French fashion industry signed a voluntary agreement to promote "healthy body images" and fight anorexia.
Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot opened the debate Tuesday on the floor of the National Assembly by describing the growing problem of even detecting eating disorders, never mind preventing them. She said the media had to take some responsibility for a culture that encourages them.
