These are more than encouraging figures. Since 2014, Santé Publique France reports in its 2024 barometer published this Wednesday, October 15, France has registered 4 million fewer daily smokers.
While tobacco remains the main cause of preventable mortality in the country (it kills 75,000 people a year, representing 13% of deaths), smoking “has decreased significantly compared to 2021,” celebrates the health agency.
In 2024, among people aged 18 to 75, the agency counts 24% of tobacco smokers and 17.4% daily, compared to 32 and 25% respectively in 2021. According to her, “these declines are part of a trend that began in 2016” and that probably continued until 2019, before stabilization. In 2023, the decline resumed again.
On the other hand, the study figures reveal the existence of disparities and inequalities in the face of this addiction depending on the regions and social environment of the respondents. Poorer French people are therefore more likely to smoke (and smoke daily) if they live in the south of the country than in the north.
More smokers in the South
Compared to the average for other regions, daily smoking is higher in the Grand Est (19.8%), Occitanie (20.6%) and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (20.9%). The cause is mainly cultural factors and promiscuity with neighboring countries where the price of cigarettes is lower than in France.
A marked local dependency that is also observed among the most disadvantaged populations such as workers (25.1%) or even the unemployed. In this last category, Santé Publique France registers 29.7% of smokers.
“The prevalence of daily smoking is significantly higher the lower the level of education,” the barometer details.
Likewise, 19.2% of workers smoke, of which 11.8% are executives or work in higher intellectual professions. It should be noted that 8.8% of retirees and 12.2% of students will be smokers in France in 2024.
The central role of prevention
This is another interesting data from the barometer. In fact, more than half of daily smokers, or 55% of them, say they want to quit smoking and 17.3% explain having tried to quit smoking for at least one week in the last twelve months.
“As observed in 2021, attempts to quit smoking are more frequent among the most socioeconomically advantaged smokers and, in particular, among the most educated,” the survey details.
With each new attempt, reminds Santé Publique France, the chances of quitting smoking increase considerably. They are multiplied by five. The attempts constitute, therefore, solid bases to achieve, in the long term, a real cessation of smoking.
Furthermore, and prevention is not unrelated, the barometer figures seem to indicate that tobacco sales are permanently falling in France. They have dropped 24% between 2021 and 2024.
In many cases, the total abandonment of cigarette consumption begins through strong moments of national prevention, such as during “No Tobacco Month.” The primary objective of the health authorities is, through these actions, to generate in the population attempts to stop for at least 30 days. From this moment on, smokers deactivate and unlearn a series of reflexes related to smoking. “Change your smoking habits” is also one of the tips from the Tabac information service to successfully quit smoking.
Source: BFM TV
