Par an

Question

Pourquoi "par an" au lieu de "par année" ?

Accepted Answer

Hi Frank, 
Here, the statistic is per year, not per week or per day so 'an' is the correct time frame.
Les Français consomment xxx par an, par semaine, par jour.
Bonne Continuation!

Answer

Hi Frank,"forty-three litres of wine per year!"I assume that it is this part of the text that is your query?I understand that so many litres of wine per year will be refering to each period of 12 months between (say) Jan - Dec inclusive. If so, then this would be correctly described as "par an" in terms of a statistic. The text would need to be refering to the actual elapse period of within the twelve months to justify "par année"Hope this helps.Jim

Answer

Just to add my 2 cents' worth: this is looking at a year as a single entity, you could also drink 43 liters per 2 years, or 3, for that matter. So it's counting liters as well as years, hence an and not année.