On this particular evening, Anna Toumazoff hadn't ordered a pint of beer, as she had done in the past, often as an automatic reflex. Instead, she ordered a double espresso latte, which has become her new habit, alternating with Club-Mate (a fizzy, energizing tea-based drink), since the 27-year-old quit drinking alcohol. In September, the feminist influencer broadcast her decision on her Instagram account: "I'm quitting alcohol completely for the next six months," she wrote as a teaser, as if to set herself a goal from which she could no longer deviate. And "to give strength to those who question their drinking but don't dare take the plunge," she explained.

It was several months earlier that she had begun to question the impact that her use of alcohol, from drunken parties to post-work events, was having on her "whole life": The drunken actions she regretted in the early hours of the morning, the "sad" propensity to "intoxicate" herself in the hope of enjoying herself with others, the frequent hangovers and the vivid anxiety of the day after drinking, which she recounted unfiltered on social media. Her statement elicited numerous comments from her followers, largely around her age, who also confided their awareness of the invasive aspect alcohol had taken on in their daily lives.

At this stage of life, the first few months after the summer break are usually synonymous with a return to late-night drinking, dinner parties with friends, student parties and orientation weekends, where alcohol is everywhere and normalized. And it's precisely at this moment that many 20-somethings have chosen, like Toumazoff, to publicly express their desire to take a step back from drinking. Salomé Lahoche, a 25-year-old illustrator, made a small comic strip about it online, in which she explained her entry into sobriety after having "romanticized the high and the rock image it generated" during her studies.

An underlying trend

These recent statements are part of an underlying trend. Studies show that young people are drinking less and less. The proportion of 17-year-olds who have never drunk alcohol in their lives has risen significantly in 20 years (19.4% in 2022, compared with 4.4% in 2002), according to the latest report from the Observatoire Français des Drogues et des Tendances Addictives (OFDT, which monitors drugs and addiction), published in 2023. When they drink, young people still tend to do so in large quantities, the survey revealed, with the persistence of binge drinking when there is excessive alcohol intake during their first experiences of partying. But even these practices are declining among young adults and teenagers (only 36.6% of 17-year-olds surveyed had had a heavy drinking episode in that month, with more than six drinks close together, compared with 44% in 2017).

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