The number of smokers is stagnating in France, after falling sharply every year since the second half of the 2010s. This is the observation made by Public Health France on Tuesday, on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day. And this, despite the government’s efforts to fight smoking, with a constant increase in the price of cigarettes and prevention campaigns.
“Social inequalities”
In its study published on Wednesday, Public Health France highlights “very marked social inequalities (…)” in terms of smoking in the French population. The agency noted a “significantly higher prevalence of daily smoking at lower diploma level.” Nearly a third of people without a bachelor’s degree smoke daily, compared to 16% of people with a higher than a baccalaureate degree.
The third of the population with the lowest income is also the group most affected by smoking. Four out of 10 unemployed smoke daily, compared to 26% of workers and 19% of students.
For some experts, social inequalities in smoking can be seen as a side effect of public health campaigns. They have “a greater impact among the most privileged social classes,” according to the president of the Francophone Tobacco Society, Anne-Laurence Le Faou.
According to the agency, these social inequalities “will be a great challenge for the third national tobacco control program, which will be launched in 2023.” These control plans include “early prevention devices in schools” or smoking cessation aids.
For Anne-Laurence Le Faou, however, “improving the social conditions of these groups of smokers is not a sufficient strategy to reduce the prevalence of smoking because tobacco addiction is serious.” The tobacco specialist pleads for better weaning aid for parents, for “improving children’s schooling conditions” or even for the “fight against social isolation”, the “encouragement to obtain a degree and to access to a professional activity”.
Covid-19 and stress
In addition to social inequalities, Public Health France researchers believe that the “impact of the health, social and economic crisis linked to Covid-19 cannot be excluded” given this stabilization in the number of smokers “and the observed increase” . among certain populations.
The crisis has caused anxiety in a large part of the population, both in terms of health and due to the restrictions imposed by governments. Teleworking, the possible economic losses linked to a slowdown or cessation of activity have also increased the stress of a part of the population. These factors may have led smokers to continue or resume their tobacco use.
However, the latter point out in their report that the crisis has also “affected less favored populations more” for whom “cigarettes can be perceived as a tool to manage stress and daily difficulties.”
“This pandemic may also have had an impact on the mental health of the population, (…) anxiety and depression disorders (are) associated with smoking,” underlines the study conducted by epidemiologist Anne Pasquereau.
As an illustration of this phenomenon linked to the pandemic, attempts to quit smoking linked to the “Month without Tobacco” operation decreased during the two years of the health crisis, according to the authors of the report.
However, these assumptions must be qualified. The United States, also affected by the pandemic, has seen tobacco use fall to particularly low levels, with one in 10 Americans reporting smoking by 2022.
Lower inflation on the cigarette pack
The galloping inflation that has been part of the daily life of the French since 2021 and was accentuated last year with the start of the war in Ukraine can also be a source of stress and anxiety and thus encourage the desire to smoke a cigarette. But if the increase in prices has strongly affected food (+12% in 2022), “tobacco prices have only increased very slightly in 2021 and 2022”, notes Public Health France.
These smaller increases had, therefore, the effect of “a relative fall in the price of tobacco compared to other consumer products”, the latter having seen their prices increase by an average of 5.9% last year. “It has caught up with a 50-cent increase in March 2023 and a 35-cent increase expected in 2024,” however, note the researchers, who believe “pricing policy could be a major problem” for the government. . .
The Alliance Against Tobacco recommends a “gradual and continuous” increase in the price of the package until it reaches 15 euros in 2027, recalls its president, Dr. Loïc Josseran, in an article published this Wednesday by the Institut Montaigne.
If the import of cigarettes from abroad, where the package sometimes costs less, has not stopped, the Senate voted on Tuesday a reform that ensures the search capabilities of customs officials, while Bercy published a report last week 2022 “exceptional” for French customs. , with a particular record of 649.07 tons of tobacco and cigarettes seized.
The text also increases the sanction provided for the fraudulent introduction or import of tobacco products. It extends from one to three years (ten years in the case of an organized gang). The Senate also voted in favor of a government amendment that expands the ability for customs to use drones, particularly in the fight against tobacco trafficking.
Increase in vaping
More than 40% of the French also said they had already tried e-cigarettes, up from 38% in 2021. Around 7% of them are currently using it, a significant increase since 2016.
Young people may be tempted by the disposable version of these electronic vapers, the “puffs”, which taste like candy and are presented in a particularly attractive way for a teenage audience, with bright colors. “Completely watered down marketing,” denounced Marion Catelin, director of the Alliance Against Tobacco, on BFMTV. The puffs also have nicotine, which can create a strong addiction and push young people to consume more classic cigarettes later.
The Minister of Health, François Braun, was in favor of its ban. However, he paved the way for the prescription, by pharmacists, as well as the reimbursement by social security of nicotine substitutes that promote smoking cessation in the form of electronic cigarettes.
A measure that must be supervised, according to the anti-smoking associations, with, in particular, a follow-up for several weeks or months of the patients who benefit from these prescriptions, so that the “smoker does not become a vaper”, according to the words of the president of the Alliance Against Tobacco on Sud Radio this Monday.
Regulations less strict than in other countries
Since 1991 and the Evin law, France has adopted a law to combat smoking. This was followed by bans on smoking in certain public places, such as restaurants (2004), then in health facilities, public transport, schools and workplaces (2007).
But some countries even prohibit smoking on the terraces of bars and cafes, or in public places outdoors, which is currently not subject to any law in France. With the desire to also fight against passive smoking through smoke inhalation by non-smokers, several municipalities then took up the issue to establish tobacco-free spaces in parks or gardens. This is particularly the case in Argenteuil, in Val-d’Oise.
“It’s a good thing for citizens, for people who don’t smoke, and also for children,” a local resident reacted to the BFMTV microphone this Wednesday morning, in favor of “forcing things a bit.” to reduce the “nuisances” associated with cigarette smoke.
“These decisions (…) also make it possible to exclude tobacco from our daily lives. They thus give smokers the opportunity to associate pleasant and pleasant moments with the places and people that surround them instead of with cigarettes”, the report abounds. Dr. Loïc Josseran in his article.
Sweden, best student in the EU?
The “first” country to restrict smoking in public spaces, “first in playgrounds and after-school centers, then in restaurants, outdoor cafes and public places like bus stations” was Sweden, according to Ulrika Arehed, director of the Swedish Smoking Society. Cancer. , according to comments reported by the agency Associated Press. But also in this country, the proportion of smokers, although it has fallen drastically, continues to be higher among the most disadvantaged.
Sweden will become Europe’s first “tobacco-free” country (meaning it will have less than 5% smokers in its population), as daily cigarette consumption declines, according to AP. Last year, 5.6% of Swedes over the age of 15 smoked daily according to data from the Swedish Public Health Agency, compared to 18.5% of European Union citizens in 2019, according to Eurostat.
In the early 2000s, one in five Swedes smoked. Experts attribute the drastic decline in the number of smokers in Sweden to decades of awareness campaigns, as well as anti-smoking legislation. Others point to ‘snus’, a chewing tobacco presented in the northern European country as an alternative to cigarettes but banned from sale in many other member countries of the European Union, such as France, for containing nicotine and inducing a strong addiction.
In France, adolescents have been harassed after illegally obtaining and consuming snus. According to the French Alliance Against Tobacco, these small and discreet envelopes can also promote the appearance of pancreatic cancer, cause lesions in the mucous membranes of the mouth and irreversible receding gums.
“Switching from one harmful product to another is not a solution,” the WHO said in an email to AP.
Source: BFM TV
