Belgium wants to give kids beer to keep them off sugary drinks: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12248/belgian-plan-give-...

They tested it out and the test was successful. The kids preferred beer to sugary drinks. The beer was much weaker than what adults are accustomed to at 1.5% to 2% alcohol.

Just some correction here for ppl who skim stuff:

The linked article says this was a trial in 2001. Only 1 school did it and it seemed to go well, but no other schools were willing to try it.

That main ban is for purchasing alcoholic beverages. Adults in France can buy alcohol and serve it legally to their children. Same in Belgium, until 2010 it was even allowed to serve drinks to children in bars providing that adults where present and buying the drinks.

I don't get some countries or people that forbid alcohol until you are 18 or 21. I drank beer when I was 8 and got totally drunk at 14. Which was a good thing, because it was at home and, well, lesson learned. Starting with alcohol when going out at 18 or 21 sounds much more dangerous.

In North America drunk driving is a huge problem. You can't get anywhere without driving a car so if you're drinking and not in your house you have to drive home.

Social pressure/not yet fully formed brain etc. leads to ppl under 21 being more likely to drive drunk. That's the rationale for not being able to drink until 21.

"The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that minimum drinking age laws have saved more than 31,000 lives from 1975 to 2017"

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/motor-vehicle-safe...

Wow I would have thought this saved more than a thousand lives a year, thats like a rounding error with the amount of deaths overall a year. Then take into account probably a lot more underage kids get their lives ruined with a drinking conviction and its probably a law that results in overall net harm.

Somehow I feel like we have it backwards then. We should have the minimum driving age be 21 for the same reasons, with the added danger to others of mistakes.

Because of our reliance on cars. If most people could walk or take public transportation home we could lower the drinking age.

The important thing is getting even mildly drunk, even once only, before you are confident driving. 5 years as in the US are way too much as you will confidently drive drunk without understanding the effect.

In other countries you will probably be drunk for the first time around the time you're taking driving lessons, or earlier.

Many states and provinces in north America have similar provisions, just fyi.

Is Alcohol banned in the french equivalent of a high school?

It certainly is not here in Austria. 17 year olds drinking beer between their late afternoon classes is not unheard of and often tolerated.

Lycée would be the equivalent of high-school, with a typical age of 15-18 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_education_in_France).

Why would it not be tolerated? They are almost grown up. If they are considered mature enough to make their driver's license, why wouldn't they be allowed to drink?

They're also old enough to have sex, but they probably aren't supposed to do that at school.

> 17 year olds drinking beer between their late afternoon classes is not unheard of and often tolerated.

Well, it's between classes, in their free time.

Not clear if they're doing it at school or outside of school. If the latter, the analogy doesn't apply.

> If they are considered mature enough to make their driver's license, why wouldn't they be allowed to drink?

Don't know, seems natural to me, since I've grown up with that mindset but not all nations agree on that.