DRINKERS in the world’s biggest wine-producing country now prefer beer.

Sales of lagers and ales for at-home consumption in France have overtaken wine for the first time.

Beer represented 45 per cent of sales between 2019 and 2023.

During the same period, still and sparkling wine made up 40 per cent of booze sales.

The French are also buying more volumes of beer, with an average of 26 litres per year per household, compared to 24 litres a year of wine.

The findings by the country’s national agricultural products office revealed wine sales have fallen by 18 per cent in the last 14 years.

Beer sales rose 16 per cent over the same period.

The country’s National Committee of Wine Professions put it down to “generational change”.

Tom Bott, co-founder of London-based brewery Signature Brew, said: “It is testament to how beer has developed over the past ten years.

“Plus beer is cheap — you can sit down and drink it with friends and it brings them together.”