Paris tries horror to scare youths off binge-drinking

The city of Paris launched a mini-horror movie competition on Tuesday as part of a campaign against binge drinking by the young.

Youngsters were invited to send in horror-style movies of up to five minutes that illustrate the damage that can result from guzzling large amounts of alcohol at great speed.

Paris city hall provided an example of the type of film it wants on its campaign website www.thebinge-lefilm.com, which warns that binge-drinking can lead to comas, serious accidents and physical and sexual violence.

The website showed a youngster turning into a bloodthirsty zombie after knocking back a bottle of liquor with friends in the park at the foot of Notre Dame cathedral.

A city hall spokeswoman said the competition would not accept films of real people getting drunk, but was seeking fictional horror films to boost the campaign against the dangers of bingeing aimed at 15 to 25-year-olds.

Paris authorities do not have exact figures on binge-drinking.

But they point to figures from the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addictions (OFDT) that show binge drinking in France rose by 10 percent between 2005 and 2008.

One in five young French in 2008 participated in a binge-drinking session, according to the OFDT.