Background The Loi Évin legislation restricts alcohol advertising in France, and is more comprehensive than the self-regulation-based UK approach. This project aimed to analyse how the Loi Évin has been represented in UK media and parliament by the advertising and alcohol industries, politicians and non-governmental organisations. It is important to understand this because it can potentially shed light on how stakeholders, including industry, frame the debate around public health policy.

Methods Qualitative analysis of media and parliamentary documents using the hermeneutic method, assessing contexts in which the Loi Évin was mentioned by stakeholders in the media and in parliament. Print and trade media articles referencing the Loi Évin were retrieved from the PROQUEST media archive [from 1985–2016]. UK parliamentary representations referencing the Loi Évin were obtained from the parliamentary database for publications and the Hansard parliamentary record. In total, 109 documents referencing the Loi Évin were identified, of which 71 (44 articles from ProQuest, 27 from parliamentary sources) contained direct quotes from stakeholders and were therefore included. These were analysed thematically using the hermeneutic method, which involved reading and understanding meanings of individual texts, in this case the contexts in which the Loi Évin was mentioned, identifying sub-themes or ‘codes’, grouping these into broader thematic clusters of codes, triangulating findings between different sources (for example, identifying similar arguments in print media and evidence submissions), assessing the reliability/validity of findings (through verification of coding by a second researcher), and illustrative use of representative case material. All coding was performed using NVivo 11.3.2.

Results The alcohol and advertising industries have framed the Loi Évin as incompatible with EU principles, irrational and ineffective, with their arguments changing over time in response to landmark events and rulings. Supporters of Loi Évin-style legislation by contrast failed to counter industry framing of arguments around the link between regulations and overall consumption changes.

Conclusion The portrayal of the Loi Évin by industry in the UK is an important case study of policy framing, and provides evidence of the synergy between the advertising and alcohol industries in combatting legislation that could potentially harm profit. Public health professionals practitioners, academics and advocates should be aware of the nature of such industry arguments when considering submissions to policy development processes.