Smoking ban on beaches and near schools: the aim is to "denormalize smoking"

The day after Health Minister Catherine Vautrin announced a ban on smoking in parks, on beaches, and around schools starting July 1, the French Observatory for Drugs and Addictive Trends (OFDT) announced this Friday that tobacco sales in France will fall by more than 11% by 2024. Dr. Emmanuel Ricard, spokesperson for the League Against Cancer, reaffirmed on RMC and RMC Story the need to "completely denormalize smoking ."

In particular, passive smoking, which causes between 3,000 and 5,000 deaths per year in France, compared to 75,000 among smokers, is in the spotlight. "A study in Japan showed that a woman who lives with a smoking husband is twice as likely to die from lung cancer as one with a non-smoking husband," Emmanuel Ricard points out.

The tobacco industry is seeking "to reintroduce cigarettes into the physical and virtual world," warns the League Against Cancer.

While the United Kingdom has banned the purchase - for life - for people born on or after January 1, 2009, with the aim of creating a tobacco-free generation, the League Against Cancer would like tobacconists in France to at least systematically ask for an identity card so that minors cannot buy cigarettes. Especially since, while purchase is prohibited, consumption, for minors, is still permitted. Something that Catherine Vautrin said she is thinking about, in the columns of Ouest-France .

Another area of ​​concern for Emmanuel Ricard is the industry's lobbying and its desire to "reintroduce tobacco into the physical and virtual world." "Seeing someone smoking makes you think it's normal, whether on the street or in the cinema," he insists.

Failure to comply with these new bans could result in a class 4 fine, or 135 euros ," the Minister of Health said on Thursday, who believes that the freedom to smoke "stops where children's right to breathe clean air begins." While some smokers are already complaining, the League Against Cancer already anticipates a normalization of behavior in the future, similar to the changes brought about by the Evin law, which permanently banned smoking inside bars and restaurants in 2008.

These announcements come as Saturday, May 31, is World No Tobacco Day. "The best lever remains price," Dr. Emmanuel Ricard said on Apolline Matin, emphasizing the complementarity of public policies and prevention campaigns (plain packaging, no-smoking month in November, etc.).