The League Against Cancer denounces the “omnipresence” of images related to smoking in many French films.
- More than 90% of French films contain images related to smoking
- In France in 2020, one in four adults smokes daily
Less than a week before World No Tobacco Day, a double observation shows that in France, the cigarette is far from having disappeared from the landscape. Not only do a quarter of adults continue to smoke daily, according to a report published by Santé Publique Francebut above all the image of tobacco is still very common in French films, to the point that the League Against Cancer denounces its “omnipresence”.
The equivalent of six commercials
No, the characters who “toast” cigarette after cigarette would not only be the hallmark of films of the 70s! Between 2015 and 2019, a very large proportion of “Made in France” films (90.7%!) would include “at least one event, object or speech related to tobacco, people smoking, presence of ashtrays , cigarettes, characters who talk about tobacco…” notes the League Against Cancer quoted in Le Point magazine. A presence that the League estimates at “the equivalent of six advertising spots”.
Worse, these films which depict smoking do so through sequences shot in cafes, restaurants, places of conviviality, i.e. places where smoking is now prohibited! The League relies for deplore these images in an IPSOS poll which shows that for 58% of young people aged 18 to 24 this is indeed “incitement to smoking” and that for 54% of them “tobacco manufacturers are playing a role in product placement”. According to the association, “this overrepresentation of tobacco in films is all the more worrying since since the first confinement, two out of three young people spend more time in front of films and series”.
25% of adults would smoke daily
However, according to the epidemiological bulletin of Public Health France which underlines that more than 25% of adults declare that they have continued to smoke daily in 2020, “confinement does not seem to have had an adverse impact on smoking prevalence”. Even if the figures published by this organization indicate that the spectacular drop in smoking in recent years “is in the process of stabilizing”. A stagnation which would be mainly due to “a context of social crisis”: it would indeed be the most precarious French people among whom we find the largest proportion (33%) of smokers, a proportion which increased by four points between 2019 and 2020.
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