LSmoking kills more than two hundred French people per day, making it the leading cause of preventable mortality and cancer in France. Despite significant efforts, France shows results significantly lower than those of the United States in its fight against tobacco.
Our country should take inspiration from the American strategy, fundamentally different, but as simple as it is effective: condemn tobacco multinationals to pay copious punitive damages and massively finance prevention campaigns in schools.
The French smoke much more than their neighbors. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the proportion of smokers among those over 15 years of age exceeds a third in France, while it varies between a fifth and a quarter in neighboring countries (Germany, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco and Switzerland), with the exception of Andorra and Spain, where the rate is between a quarter and a third.
The proportion of smokers in France also exceeds the average for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries by almost 40%. So much so that tobacco is attributed to the death of one in eight French people, and it is estimated that one in two smokers will die from its practice. Even during 2020, more French people died from tobacco than from Covid-19, and the victims were on average younger.
Limited impact
This gloomy picture does not, however, result from a lack of national commitment to the fight against tobacco. Our country carries out prevention campaignsfinances cessation services, prohibits advertising and consumption in enclosed public places and imposes neutrality of packaging. In addition, it stands out for its extreme taxation (around 85% of the total price of a pack of cigarettes).
Contrary to popular belief, tobacco taxes have a limited impact on its use. Although a correlation exists between tobacco consumption and its price, it is not as clear as one might think. This is evidenced by the fact that the French smoke much more than their neighbors, even if the price of their cigarettes is up to twice as expensive. This phenomenon is also observed in the United States where, although a pack of cigarettes costs twice as much in Illinois as in California, the proportion of smokers is 40% higher there.
Taxes on tobacco are, however, justified to finance public health, although most French people wrongly believe that the sale of tobacco brings in more to the State than it costs it. This other preconceived idea is refuted by economic analyses, which reveal that health care costs linked to tobacco exceed tax revenues and pension savings not paid to people who die prematurely by several billion euros each year.
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