Type in wallet. This is the government’s strategy to reduce smoking in France. So the executive is considering raising the price of a pack of cigarettes to 12 euros from 2024, a frank increase of 1 euro, according to RMC. The objective is even to reach 13 euros by 2027. “Public health specialists are very clear. You have to go beyond a few cents to have an impact on consumption, ”we explain to the government, with our colleagues.
The Ministry of Health is ready to implement this project. Except that the initiative is not to everyone’s taste. Another minister worries: the risk is “that such an increase will be perceived as the end of the last pleasure for the working classes”.
If the government wants to hit the tobacco box, it’s a matter of public health, but also of balancing the budget. Tobacco costs between 20 and 26 billion euros per year to the Health Insurance. He would kill more than 66,000 French people each year.
The state had already passed the second on the price hike in May, with some packages costing up to 11 euros now. And he would now like to index his price to inflation.