The prospect of the 10 euro packet of cigarettes seems less and less blurred. In any case, this is what the roadmap of the Minister of Health addressed to Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and unveiled this weekend by the Hospimedia site. “The fight against smoking, which is the leading preventable cause of death, will be intensified (…) by rapidly and sharply increasing the price of tobacco from 2018 (…)”, explains Agnès Buzyn.
An increase of almost 50%?
A positioning that is not surprising, since it goes in the direction of that of the President of the Republic. During his campaign, Emmanuel Macron said he was in favor of the 10-euro package. “I am completely ready”, he had launched at the microphone of RTL. The Minister of Health had also declared that she was not “against” this increase, in an interview with Parisian-Today in France in the month of June. “We need awareness, especially among young people and women,” she said.
In 2018, smokers could therefore see the packet of cigarettes increase by almost 50%, since it would go from around 6.5 euros to 10 euros. The objective of such a measure? “May the generation that is born today be the first generation without tobacco”, we can read on Agnès Buzyn’s roadmap. But there is still a long way to go: 7 in 10 smokers have tried to quit and have not succeeded, according to one investigation Ifop / Pfizer published in May 2017.
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