Paris ? The French government announced more than $91 million in aid Monday for the country’s struggling wine industry, hit by falling consumption at home and increased competition in export markets.

The government also will allow the destruction of vines in overproducing regions and apply for EU permission to distill millions of surplus bottles into alcohol, Agriculture Minister Dominique Bussereau said.

Bussereau said $15 million would be paid out to winemakers in extra grants and tax breaks, along with $71.7 million in loans to producers and cooperatives in financial difficulty.

The government also will pay for 500 vintners to take early retirement in 2005, the minister told a news conference after talks with winemakers’ representatives in Paris.

Bussereau said the government had made a “considerable effort” to help the country’s winemakers, who are caught between sharply declining consumption in France and tougher competition in export markets. Wines from Australia, Chile and the United States outpaced French exports for the first time in 2003.

The measures announced Monday also included $4.5 million in government spending to promote French wines abroad.

Sales in France — which still account for about 70 percent of national wine production — have been hurt in recent years by an onslaught of anti-alcohol campaigns and tougher drunk driving laws.

The Senate earlier this month passed an amendment to partially lift alcohol publicity restrictions that critics said made it harder to advertise wine than well-known beer or liquor brands.

Nevertheless, a study published Thursday by Vinexpo, the world’s No.1 wine show, forecast that French adults would continue to reduce their wine consumption to an average 15.3 gallons per year in 2008 from 17 gallons in 2003.

In order to reduce overcapacity, Bussereau said Monday that the government would approve the destruction of vines in regions where winemakers’ organizations unanimously called for such measures.

France also will ask the European Union to approve a crisis plan to distill some 66 million gallons of wine into alcohol and pay compensation to vintners.

Some of the winemakers’ representatives at the talks said the measures did not go far enough.

Two wine growers, from Sainte-Cecile-Les-Vignes in southern France, carry a fake coffin reading Here