The announcement of a sharp rise in tobacco prices within three years has once again thrown French tobacconists into the street. However, according to the Eurobarometer, the French have become the biggest smokers in Europe behind the Greeks.
36% SMOKING IN FRANCE: A NUMBER THAT EXPLODES THE EUROPEAN AVERAGE!
Earlier this week, the French government unveiled the schedule for rising tobacco prices. By November 2020, the price of the most common cigarette packets will rise to 10 € (against 7 currently) while rolling tobacco and cigarillos will also be expensive.
It must be said that despite all the measures adopted for nearly 30 years, France remains in Europe a country where we smoke a lot.
It's not because cigarettes are cheap. At 7 € the Malboro package currently, France ranks third on 28 on the price scale, only Ireland and the UK selling significantly more expensive this package, respectively to 11 and 10,20 €.
Prices are therefore higher in France than in 25 country of the Union, the package of Marlboro selling 6 € in Germany, Belgium or Scandinavia, 5 in Italy or Spain, around 3,5 € in many countries of Central Europe and up to 2,6 € in Bulgaria.
This relative high price should discourage the smoking of our fellow citizens. However, referring to the triennial Eurobarometer on tobacco published by the European Commission in 2017, we must unfortunately note that this is absolutely not the case.
France is, on the contrary, very poorly classified as a percentage of inhabitants who usually declare themselves to be smokers. They represent 36% of the population in France and only Greece is worse, with 37%.
France appears to be the only country in Western Europe with Austria among the eleven countries that register more than 28% of smokers. The EU average is 26%, Germany and Italy are slightly below this average (respectively 25 and 24%) while seven Western European countries, including Belgium, the United Kingdom and United Kingdom or the Netherlands have less than 20% of smokers.
