The last cigarette factory in France is resisting

“We hope it will last”, but “we are aware that it is not the product of the future”: in Furiani, in Corsica, the Manufacture Corse des Tabacs has been the last cigarette factory in France since 2016, with 850 million units produced per year.

Around Nicolas Bernard, 49, a specialized worker who has worked for 20 years at Macotab, machines shake the tobacco before slipping it into the cylindrical paper, adding a filter and then grouping the cigarettes in batches of 20.

They are then wrapped in aluminum foil to preserve the freshness of the tobacco, then in cardboard packaging and plastic film. The packets are then grouped by 10 in a filmed cartridge.

An employee of the Corsican tobacco factory (Macotab), February 8, 2023 in Furiani (AFP / Pascal POCHARD-CASABIANCA)

“I arrived here by chance, via the interim”, tells AFP Nicolas Bernard. This non-smoker, passionate about mountain sports, appreciates “working with a natural product. You have to deal with the quality of the tobacco, which can be changeable”.

“A bit like wine, there are blends of different varieties,” adds site director Thierry Jourdan, comparing the action of his worker “to bottling” in viticulture.

As for the future of this industry “rather in decline in Europe”, “which factory in France knows what it will be doing in three years?” Asks Mr. Jourdan, also director of the Seita factory in Le Havre (north). , which imports and processes tobacco.

Tobacco “is the leading cause of preventable death” in France, according to Public Health France, which estimates the number of deaths due to tobacco at 75,000 per year and argues that “one in two regular smokers dies from the consequences of their smoking”.

the director of Macotab, Thierry Jourdan, controls the quality of tobacco, on February 8, 2023 in Furiani, Corsica (AFP / Pascal POCHARD-CASABIANCA)

France has banned tobacco advertising, and many factories have closed, turning into cultural venues (Marseilles) or even universities (Lyon).

The Corsican factory, the last to manufacture cigarettes in France since the closure of that of Riom (center) in 2016, today employs 30 employees on 10,000 square meters, compared to 143 in the early 1980s.

Created in 1961, it belongs to the Seita group (Société d’exploitation Industrielle des Tabacs et des Correspondettes), a former French tobacco monopoly privatized in 1995, itself a subsidiary of the British giant Imperial Tobacco, and produces cigarettes for Corsica and other regions of France.

– Parallel market –

“Most of the manufacture of cigarettes in Europe today takes place in Germany and Poland”, with respectively 150 and 114 billion units produced per year, told AFP Basile Vezin, director of communication for the group. Seita.

Machines for packaging cigarettes at Macotab, February 8, 2023 in Furiani, Corsica (AFP / Pascal POCHARD-CASABIANCA)

But “today, the parallel market is our first competitor”, explains Mr. Vezin, recalling that in France, it weighs 36% of the cigarettes consumed – one packet out of three -, with “50% counterfeits and 50% smuggling and border buying”.

Several clandestine factories were also dismantled in France in 2022 and in January in Rouen (north).

Last December, the Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal unveiled a three-year plan to combat tobacco trafficking: according to customs statistics, from 284 tonnes in 2020, seizures of contraband tobacco stood at more than 600 tonnes (including two-thirds of cigarettes) over the first 10 months of 2022.

But Thierry Jourdan also deplores “the lack of tax harmonization between the different European countries”: a package is worth around 5 euros in Spain or 6.50 euros in Sardinia against 8.50 euros in Corsica and 10.50 in France – -knowing that the price of a French package is divided between 84% taxes, 10% for tobacconists and the rest for manufacturers and distributors.

A Macotab employee places cigarettes in a holder before being packaged on February 8, 2023 in Furiani, Corsica (AFP / Pascal POCHARD-CASABIANCA)

In Corsica, an exceptional regime dating from a decree by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1811 made it possible to have prices 25% cheaper than those on the Continent, but the 2020 finance bill put an end to it. Since 2022, the pack of cigarettes sold on the island must be worth at least 80% of that in France and the price must increase each year by 5% until reaching 95% in 2025.

However, “32% of 18-75 year olds said they smoked in 2021”, according to Public Health France.

© 2023 AFP

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