France sponsors 1000 free wine and cheese parties

France has launched a campaign in 19 countries (USA, Canada, Spain etc) where anyone who wants can sign up to be a candidate to be sponsored for a free wine and cheese party. 1000 participants will be chosen to organise in their homes a paid-for-by-France wine and cheese cocktail party. The only condition is that they afterward report on how it turned out. The party package contains (apart from wine and cheese one assumes) a French apron and a CD with music by Carla Bruni (an Italian-born French singer who is married to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, who does not drink wine… Figure that one out!) They have a budget of 1.6 million euro for the parties to promote French gastronomy and wine, all coordinated by the promotion organisation Sopexa. We cannot quite figure out how this campaign fits with the various anti-wine measures and campaigns that they implement at home on the French territory. Why not launch the campaign in France too instead? Or do French authorities want us to drink more French wine but only if it is done outside of France? Wall Street Journal