In France, You Can Be Too Thin

"Fashion crime" may take on a whole new meaning.

The French National Assembly has passed legislation that would make it illegal to publicly incite extreme thinness -- on penalty of imprisonment.

Sure, there have been anti-anorexia efforts from the fashion industry in the past. French fashion industry members signed a nonbinding charter promoting healthier body image; Madrid banned ultra-thin models from runways, and the Council of Fashion Designers of America formed guidelines for a health initiative.

But the bill, which must still pass the French Senate, has taken things to a new level.

Jean Paul Gaultier, public enemy No. 1? Karl Lagerfeld, one of France's most wanted?

That may sound far-fetched, but the proposal is so vague and broad as to raise questions about how it might be put into effect.

Proposition No. 781, "to combat the incitement to anorexia," would be added to the "Provocation of Suicide" section of the French penal code, which makes it illegal to promote "products, articles, or methods" meant to procure one's death.

The proposition reads, according to my translation:

"The act of provoking a person to seek to be excessively thin by encouraging prolonged dietary restriction, for its effect of exposing him or her to a danger of death or directly compromising his or her health, is punishable by two years of imprisonment and 30,000 euros in fines." (Upped to three years or 45,000 euros in fines if excessive thinness leads to death).

Just how many visible ribs count as "excessively thin"? What does an ad or magazine need to do to "provoke"? If Vogue features a fashionably gaunt movie star on its cover, is that "encouraging dietary restriction"?

Steven Kolb, director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, declined to comment as to the potential impact on how American designers advertise or show collections in France.

"I am not qualified to speak on French law and am not familiar with the scope of the legislation, but I do wonder what makes a judge qualified to determine if someone is too skinny," says Kolb. "Does this law also bring in to question someone's right to freedom of speech?"

Commercial speech -- meaning advertising -- is regulated to some extent in both the European Union and the United States, but with little consistency as to what's protected as free speech. As a general rule of thumb, speech for commercial gain has to be deemed misleading or detrimental to the public good in order to be suppressed.

C. Edwin Baker, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania and an authority on the First Amendment and mass media policy, says that when it comes to regulating advertising, Europe has been more stringent than the U.S.

But French lawmakers are saying the bill is targeted at wiping out pro-anorexia websites -- which would mean censoring non-commercial speech.

"Pro anorexic websites -- which most public health advocates would say are extremely offensive -- would not be viewed as commercial by a United States court, and would in most cases be protected by freedom of speech," Baker says.

To date, France only forbids speech that promotes hatred based on sexual orientation, religion, and racial hatred, denies the holocaust, or promotes drug use. Enforcing Provision 781 would be a substantial step in the censorship direction.

Of course, it's unlikely that French lawmakers would do anything so extreme with the law in the near future. Could fashion magazines become banned?

Baker says that "an adequately narrow version of the law should and could be upheld" in the U.S.; but in order to have any chance of passing constitutional muster, a provision like this would have to be much less vague and limited to commercial speech only.

He suggests that a more likely scenario would not to be suppressing advertising, but requiring certain warnings and information labels in the way that cigarettes, food, and drugs already do.

Liz Gunnison