Modelling agencies protest as those employing models considered too thin face fines of up to €75,000 and six months in prison

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

French MPs have approved tough measures in an attempt to combat anorexia that will make it a crime for fashion agencies to use dangerously thin or undernourished models.



Members of the lower house of parliament also voted on Friday for measures that will make it illegal to promote anorexia on the internet and will oblige agencies to clearly mark all photographs of models that have been retouched to alter their body shape.

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The legislation will attempt to impose an as-yet-unspecified minimum body mass index (BMI) for models employed by agencies, who will be under threat of prison and a fine for flouting the law.

Although the measures will only apply within France, they will have a symbolic impact on the fashion industry given Paris’s role within it.

French health minister Marisol Touraine supported the ban on overly thin models – most of whom are women – presented as an amendment to her health bill, saying their use was worrying.

The legislation has yet to define the minimum BMI below which the law will apply. Under World Health Organisation guidelines an adult with a BMI below 18.5 is considered underweight, 18 malnourished, and 17 severely malnourished. The average model measuring 1.75m (5ft 9in) and weighing 50kg (7st 12lb) has a BMI of 16.

Agencies who use models whose BMIs fall below the stipulated figure will face a fine of €75,000 (£55,000) and staff face up to six months in prison. Failure to state when photos have been retouched will incur a fine of €37,500 or up to 30% of the amount spent on the advertising featuring the model.

French MPs also voted for a further clause in the health bill making it illegal to glorify anorexia on the internet. It fixes a maximum fine of €10,000 and a year in jail for “provoking people to excessive thinness by encouraging prolonged dietary restrictions that could expose them to a danger of death or directly impair their health”.

The amendments were immediately lambasted by French model agencies who warned against confusing anorexia and thinness, and accused the government of stigmatising agencies.

“It’s very serious to conflate anorexia with the thinness of models and it ignores the fact that anorexia is a psychogenic illness,” Isabelle Saint-Felix, secretary general of Synam, which represents around 40 modelling agencies in France, told AFP.

An attempt to legislate against “inciting someone to excessive thinness” in 2008 was voted on by MPs but the bill ran out of time to be presented to the upper house, the senate.

Xavier Pommereau, a psychiatrist, told Libération he was doubtful the measure against internet sites would make much difference.

“The girls who go on to these sites are already sick. They are already suffering from an obsession to impress others and show off their incredible thinness,” Pommereau said.

“It passes the message that showing dangerous images of suicide or other such things is wrong, but we are in a world that is completely internationalised and these sites and images are not confined to our borders.”

Marie-Rose Moro, psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, agreed the law would solve nothing. “It would be better to provide more resources to care for anorexic patients,” she said, adding that there should be “more awareness to eating disorders in society”.

As many as 40,000 people suffer from anorexia in France; 90% of them are women, according to health ministry figures.

Spain already bars models below a certain BMI from taking part in Madrid fashion shows and Italy demands health certificates for those on the catwalk.