Tag: France

  • French Senate Approves Tobacco Tax Hikes

    French Senate Approves Tobacco Tax Hikes

    Photo: Richard-Villalon

    The French senate approved tax hikes on tobacco products, reports The Connexion.

    With the measure, lawmakers want to raise funds for France’s social security budget, which faces a deficit of €16 billion next year, and reduce the strain on healthcare services by discouraging smoking.

    The tax increases will see the average price of a packet of cigarettes increase to €12.70 in 2025, €0.40 more than envisaged in an anti-tobacco plan outlined by the previous government last year.

    The measure is expected to raise around €200 million per year. The government wants a pack of cigarettes to cost  €13 by 2027.

    Lawmakers are also considering tax increases for nicotine pouches, nicotine sachets and oral gum/beads, although the health minister is looking to ban some of these products.

    The increased taxes should be in place until the products are banned.

  • France to Ban Nicotine Pouches 

    France to Ban Nicotine Pouches 

    Credit: Alexander

    The French government plans to ban nicotine pouches, citing concerns about underage use.

    In an interview with Le Parisien published on Oct. 30, Health Minister Genevieve Darrieussecq said that pouches “are dangerous products because they contain high doses of nicotine.”

    “The marketing of these products is directly targeted at young people, and I hope that we can protect our young people,” Darrieussecq was quoted as saying. She added that the ban will be announced in the coming weeks.

    Nicotine companies have been marketing “modern oral” products as safer alternatives to smoking cigarettes. But according to Darrieussecq, they can be just as dangerous, “especially when they are used not by former smokers but by young people,” she said.

    She argued that the pouches risk inducing nicotine addiction and serve as an entry into smoking.

    Tobacco harm reduction advocates criticized the move.

    “By banning nicotine pouches, Minister Darrieussecq is closing off an effective, far less harmful path for millions who struggle to quit smoking,” said Michael Landl, director of the World Vapers’ Alliance.

    “Pouches have proven to help smokers transition away from cigarettes in other countries and are considerably safer. Rather than offering options, France risks pushing people toward smoking or the black market.”

    Others questioned whether a ban would be effective. In Germany, where tobacco-free nicotine pouches are officially banned, they remain accessible and popular among young people, according to experts from the Tobacco Outpatient Clinic at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.

  • French City Offers Honey in Exchange for Butts

    French City Offers Honey in Exchange for Butts

    Image: Dionisvera

    The French city of Darnetal is offering residents honey in exchange for cigarette litter, reports Euro Pulse.

    For each 1.5 liter bottle filled with butts, volunteers receive a pot of honey from local apiaries.

    According to city hall estimates, 200 kilograms of cigarette butts end up on the sidewalks of Darnetal every year despite the fact that France punishes litterbugs with a fine of €135 per improperly discarded butt.

    The plastic contained in the filters presents risks for water and soil, poisoning people and animals. The initiative is designed to motivate people to think about their contribution to environmental pollution.

    European cities have been getting creative in tackling the problem of cigarette litter. In January, Slovakia announced a project to turn discarded butts into asphalt. The first road made of cigarette butts was constructed in the city of Ziar nad Hronom.

  • SOVAPE Ceases Operations

    SOVAPE Ceases Operations

    The French consumer vaping organization SOVAPE will cease operations, reports Vaping360.

    Best known for organizing three Vape Summits in France between 2016 and 2019, SOVAPE also co-founded the European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates umbrella organization. Since 2019, the group has commissioned annual surveys of French public opinion on vaping and nicotine conducted by major market research firm BVA.

    However, this year, BVA notified SOVAPE that it could no longer participate due to a health industry client’s contract prohibiting BVA from also working with nicotine-associated organizations. During its existence, SOVAPE also faced criticism of connections to the tobacco industry.

    In an Oct. 6 website post, SOVAPE explained that it can no longer carry out its mission due to the current climate of “censorship, threats, lies, denigration and slander, to which can be added the dissemination of fake news and the denial of scientific data.”

    “Dialogue in this context is impossible,” SOVAPE wrote, “and clearly, it is now even ‘forbidden’ to provide information, such as a banal survey, on reducing the risks of smoking in France.”

    SOVAPE will donate the balance of its funds equally to the Pasteur Institute and fellow vaping groups AIDUCE and La Vape du Coeur. SOVAPE will keep its website available for 10 years and maintains videos of Vape Summit proceedings on its YouTube channel.

    “We regret that we are no longer able to cultivate a dialogue to promote the risk reduction approach against the main cause of preventable diseases and premature deaths in France,” SOVAPE said in its post. “We do not regret having tried but must acknowledge that it is no longer possible for us to lead this fight that is dear to us and which has nevertheless contributed to saving lives!”

  • French Vape Organization SOVAPE to Shutter Doors

    French Vape Organization SOVAPE to Shutter Doors

    French consumer vaping organization SOVAPE announced this week it will dissolve. The group has been active since 2016.

    Best known for organizing three Vape Summits in France between 2016 and 2019, SOVAPE also co-founded the European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (ETHRA) umbrella organization. Since 2019, the group has commissioned annual surveys of French public opinion on vaping and nicotine conducted by major market research firm BVA.

    However, this year BVA notified SOVAPE that it could no longer participate due to a health industry client’s contract prohibiting BVA from also working with nicotine-associated organizations, according to media reports.  

    The abrupt cancellation of the survey followed other recent blows, including news articles accusing SOVAPE and other consumer groups of connections to the tobacco industry, and attacks on scientists and health professionals who supported SOVAPE’s mission.

    In an Oct. 6 website post, SOVAPE explained it can no longer carry out its mission due to the current climate of “censorship, threats, lies, denigration and slander, to which can be added the dissemination of fake news and the denial of scientific data.”

    “Dialogue in this context is impossible,” SOVAPE wrote, “and clearly, it is now even ‘forbidden’ to provide information, such as a banal survey, on reducing the risks of smoking in France.”

    SOVAPE will donate the balance of its funds equally to the Pasteur Institute and fellow vaping groups AIDUCE and La Vape du Cœur. SOVAPE has paid to keep its website available for 10 years, and maintains videos of Vape Summit proceedings on its Youtube channel.

    “We regret that we are no longer able to cultivate a dialogue to promote the risk reduction approach against the main cause of preventable diseases and premature deaths in France,” SOVAPE said in its post. “We do not regret having tried, but must acknowledge that it is no longer possible for us to lead this fight that is dear to us, and which has nevertheless contributed to saving lives!”

  • Europe OKs French Ban on Disposables

    Europe OKs French Ban on Disposables

    Photo: justoomm

    The European Commission on Sept. 25 approved France’s bid to ban disposable vapes, reports the Connexion.

    France started the process of banning single-use e-cigarettes in December 2023, citing concerns about youth uptake and environmental pollution. Disposable vapes contain microplastics and chemical substances and are generally powered by nonrechargeable, nonrecyclable lithium batteries.

    The National Assembly’s proposed ban gained approval in the French Senate in February 2024.

    Europe’s validation was the final step in making the ban possible.

    “This is a great victory for the environment and for the health of our children, who are the main targets of these marketing campaigns,” Francesca Pasquini, co-writer of the bill, was quoted as saying.

    Lawmakers have yet to determine when the legislation will take force. The next step is for senators to vote definitively on a ban before it is formally put into effect.

    France will be joining Belgium, where the sale of disposable vapes will be illegal from Jan. 1, 2025.

    According to an investigation by the French anti-smoking federation ACT, 15 percent of teenagers aged between 13 and 16 have used e-cigarettes.

  • French Tobacconists Oppose Price Hike

    French Tobacconists Oppose Price Hike

    Photo: OceanProd

    French tobacconists have objected to a proposal to raise cigarette prices to €25 per pack by 2040, reports Euractiv.

    Cigarettes in France currently retail for around €12.50 per pack, one of the highest rates in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In Europe, only U.K. and Irish smokers shell out more for their cigarettes.

    Despite the high price, France remains one of the countries with the highest number of daily smokers, and every year tobacco causes 70,000 premature deaths.

    To address this issue, the Senate Social Affairs Committee in a recent report suggested doubling the price over the next 16 years.

    Noting that “the policy of reducing smoking has failed,” the committee recommended increasing the price by at least 3.25 percent every year between now and 2040. According to the Senate, the prevalence of smoking decreases when the price increases by more than 4 percent.

    The Confédération des buralistes, which represents the interests of tobacconists in France, condemned the proposal, arguing that French already leads the way in terms of tobacco taxation. The group said the report disregards the consequences of price, both on the country’s public health and on the network’s economic situation.

    For tobacconists, efforts should focus on the fight against the black market, which account for between 30 percent and 40 percent of cigarettes consumed in France.

    However, this figure is disputed by anti-tobacco association ACT, the directorates of public finances and customs, Observatoire français des drogues et des tendances addictives, who put the figure at around 6 percent.

    France’s 2023-2027 National Tobacco Control Plan, presented in November by former health minister Aurélien Rousseau, currently plans a price of €13 per pack by 2026.

    The EU is likely to review tobacco taxation following the EU elections in June, as the current Commission has not reviewed the 2014 Tobacco Products Directive and the 2011 Tobacco Taxation Directive, as originally planned.

  • French Continuing to Finance Tobacco: Report

    French Continuing to Finance Tobacco: Report

    Image: sergnester

    Several French banks continue to finance the tobacco industry despite promises to stop doing so, according to a report commissioned by anti-smoking group Alliance Contre le Tabac (ACT), reports RFI. In November 2023 alone, the country’s banks invested $733 million in the tobacco business. Of these investment funds, 40 percent came from the BPCE Group and more than 20 percent came from Credit Agricole.

    “If the tobacco industry has succeeded in maintaining its deadly trade, it is, in part, thanks to the resources provided by banking institutions and investment funds,” said Marion Catellin, director of the ACT.

    The banks pledged to stop funding tobacco companies six years ago, according to Catellin.

    Australian nongovernmental organization Tobacco-Free Portfolio introduced the Tobacco-Free Finance Pledge in 2017, which called on international financial players to stop financing tobacco companies. Societe Generale, Credit Agricole and the BPCE group signed this pledge.

    The ACT-commissioned report showed that these banks, between 2018 and 2023, approved loans amounting to $5.3 billion to BAT, Philip Morris International and Imperial Brands.

    “These bank credits are unacceptable,” said Catellin. “As World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently stated, every investment in the tobacco industry is an investment in death and disease. By financing the tobacco industry, French banks are complicit in an industry that kills one out of every two consumers.”

    “Aware of the environmental and social impacts associated with the tobacco sector, Societe Generale has committed to a strategy to exit the sector,” said the bank, which accounts for 83 percent of French financial support for the tobacco industry. Societe Generale signed a charter in September 2023 expressing plans to exit the sector.

  • French Vote Paves Way to Disposable Ban

    French Vote Paves Way to Disposable Ban

    Credit: Laurence Soulez

    France has moved one step closer to a ban on disposable vapes. The Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to ban pre-filled, disposable e-cigarettes.

    “The marketing of these products is intended to attract young people with colors, fruit [flavors] and aromas, and low price,” Labour and Health Minister Catherine Vautrin told the chamber.

    While the Senators approved the law, they modified the National Assembly’s text to clarify the ban, according to media reports.

    The text would ban the “manufacturing, marketing, sale, distribution or offering for free” of the products and prohibit owning them with the intent to sell or distribute them, with a fine of up to €100,000 ($108,000).

    The two chambers will now need to combine their text and approve that version before it is sent to the European Commission, which will have six months to hand down an opinion.

    The government has said it hopes the ban will come into effect in September.

    Meanwhile, vaping and other recent smoking innovations are expected to be high on the agenda as country representatives gather in Panama City on Monday, tasked with revising the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the first treaty ever adopted under the auspices of WHO, entered into force.

  • France Unveils Plans to Curb Smoking

    France Unveils Plans to Curb Smoking

    Photo: Richard-Villalon

    France will increase tobacco taxes, ban disposable vapes and further restrict outdoor smoking as part of an ambitious plan to reduce the health impact of tobacco consumption and create a “tobacco-free” generation by 2032, a term that is usually defined as a situation in which less than 5 percent of the population smokes.

    Smoking rates in France have remained roughly unchanged since 2019 after decades of regularly declining, according to French public health authorities. Nearly a quarter of French adults, or about 12 million people, still smoke daily. Smoking is the leading cause of avoidable mortality in France, causing about 75,000 deaths per year.

    Some 15 percent of teenagers have vaped, and 47 percent of them started their nicotine consumption through e-cigarettes, according to an ACT Alliance Contre Le Tabac survey published in November.

    The government plan bans smoking on beaches, near public buildings like schools and in public parks and forests next year. Previously, local authorities had already barred people from smoking at more than 7,000 outdoor locations, including at beaches, forests and parks across the country, but there was no nationwide ban.

    The government also wants to extend the plain packaging requirement for cigarette packs to vaping products and set a minimum tobacco price of €13 ($14) per pack.

    Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau said the government will enact most measures by degree early next year. The ban on disposable vapes, however, will require legislation that is expected to go to Parliament in December.

    While welcoming France’s ambition to end smoking, tobacco harm reduction activists expressed concern about the planned ban on single-use vapes, which they described as a step backward in the fight against smoking.

    “Such prohibitions only serve to drive consumers either back to smoking or to black markets,” said Michael Landl, director of the World Vapers Alliance, in a statement.

    “We’ve seen time and again that prohibition doesn’t work. France should look to countries like Sweden, where a balanced approach to harm reduction has led to significant public health gains. The French government must recognize the importance of offering a variety of less harmful alternatives to smokers.”