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HEALTH

Covid halted France’s efforts to cut smoking levels

France may no longer be 'the chimney of Europe', but years of falling smoking rates have been halted by the pandemic and lockdowns, causing concern to public health experts.

Covid halted France's efforts to cut smoking levels
A cigarette smoker is pictured on March 1, 2018, in Lille, northern France (Photo by PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFP)

French smoking habits are often among the first things to strike foreigners arriving in L’Hexagon, with the waft of cigarette smoke from a café terrace one of the defining smells of the country. Though France had been making progress on discouraging smoking in the last decade, recently the country has stagnated in its efforts to cut back on les clopes.

As of 2020, about 31.8 percent of adults (ages 18-75) in France smoke and 24 percent percent are daily smokers – by contrast Americans and Brits’ national smoking habits have fallen below 15 percent.

READ MORE: The French and smoking: Is France really ‘Europe’s chimney

However, in comparison to its European counterparts, France is certainly not the ‘chimney of Europe,’ as shown in the graph below that outlines daily cigarette consumption in the EU.

In terms of trends, French cigarette consumption declined every year from 2014 to 2019.

For Viêt Nguyen Thanh, head of the Addictions Unit for the ‘Prevention and Health Promotion Directorate’ at Santé publique France, this is evidence that the national program to prevent tobacco consumption, which went into effect in 2014, was effective.

“It was the first time there was a nationwide, coordinated attempt to decrease tobacco usage,” said Nguyen Thanh. “It is thanks to this that we saw a very important drop in tobacco usage between 2014 and 2019.”

Over the years, the French government has taken several steps to combat tobacco usage. One of the most important was the “Loi Evin,” a 1991 law that placed restrictions on cigarette advertising. Smoking is also prohibited in all enclosed public places, including cafés and restaurants, as well as on public transport, in schools, and in the workplace.

Since smoking is relegated to the outdoors, it generally now takes place on café terraces – even if some of these ‘terraces’ have three walls and a roof. This whiff of cigarette smoke is still a very common experience when walking down a French street.

In 2017, France also took the step of requiring “plain packaging” on cigarette containers. The French government has also dissuaded many would-be smokers with heavy taxes on cigarettes. The size of the tax is progressive, and right now a single packet of cigarettes is about €10.

According to the French health ministry, higher tobacco taxes discouraged at least one million daily smokers between 2016-2017. 

Since the Covid pandemic, which culminated in strict lockdowns and curfews throughout France, smoking habits have actually stopped going down and in fact have stabilised. Quarantine periods were particularly challenging, with nearly 4 out of 10 French people reporting that they had difficulty controlling their tobacco consumption during periods of confinement.

Another survey by Santé Publique France found that 27 percent of smokers saw their tobacco consumption increase during the confinement. This increase was most noticeable among 25-34 year olds (41 percent) and people working at home (37 percent).

Smoking habits in France are also particularly pronounced when looking at gender and social class.

Between 2019 and 2020, daily tobacco consumption increased by three points for working class people, specifically the third of the French population with the lowest income. This mirrors trends in other countries, like the United States. According to the CDC, “blue-collar workers are more likely to start smoking cigarettes at a younger age and to smoke more heavily than white-collar workers.”

READ MORE: MAP: The places in France where people smoke the most

When it comes to gender, French men are both more likely to be smokers – 36.2 percent of men versus 27.7 percent of women – and more likely to suffer health consequences from smoking. 

Ultimately, despite tobacco usage being significantly lower than it was 10 years ago, experts still see cause a need for further efforts. Viêt Nguyen Thanh still considers French smoking levels to be “very high.”

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ENVIRONMENT

Anglo-French community fights Dordogne medical cannabis farm plan

A multi-national rural community in southwest France has come together to oppose plans for a medical cannabis production site in the area.

Anglo-French community fights Dordogne medical cannabis farm plan

Residents in the tiny Dordogne commune of Petit Bersac, on the border with Charente, joined forces to fight plans to construct a medicinal cannabis production facility, built 70m from an EU-protected conservation area, known as a Zone Natura 2000.

On a plot of 6.2 hectares, the project is for two hermetic glass and metal greenhouses – covering 2.2 hectares of land – to cultivate plants above ground, a laboratory, a leaf-pulling workshop, a drying room, and a storage and conditioning room. 

The developer hopes to obtain one of just 10 licences to produce medical cannabis in France, under a trial scheme to legalise cannabis for medical use in France. Recreational use of cannabis remains illegal.

Cecile Willgoss, 66, who lives in the village, told The Local: “We were not informed officially until the 19th of October, and we had two months to raise objections, which we’ve done. There is a legal action against the commune and the company.”

The Association Sauvegarde de la Vallee de la Dronne was formed rapidly in response to the scheme. Within weeks, a petition had about 650 signatures, while some 60 residents attended a meeting hosted by the mayor in the town hall in mid-November. Only 15 residents, whose homes were closest to the planned development, had been invited to the gathering.

Willgoss said that the association’s main concerns were ecological: “It’s right next to a zone Natura 2000. In the initial planning document on which everything is based, the porteur de projet said that it was not that close.

“The initial project was to grow cannabis for hemp in the soil. This will all be hydroponic. The buildings will cover 3.2 hectares in concrete, plus all the other materials, and there will be quite a large circuit of roads.”

She added that irrigation was a third concern. “Their calculations for holding and using rainwater [are] inaccurate. They plan to use the drinking water network when they run out of water.”

“The carbon footprint for the construction will be huge, and that appears nowhere in the permit.

“It just seems that this is a kind of project which you shouldn’t be doing now, especially in a sensitive ecological zone. It’s not the time.”

France’s relationship with cannabis is … complicated. It has some of the toughest anti-drug laws in the European Union, and yet also has the largest number of cannabis users in Europe.

The French government finally gave the go-ahead for two-year medical trials of cannabis in October 2020. Those trials were initially extended through to March 2024. With that deadline looming, and no apparent definitive news from the study, the government has proposed an amendment granting “temporary status” to medicinal cannabis drugs for up to five years, pending possible marketing authorisation.

Meanwhile, CBD oil, made from cannabis plants, is available after France’s highest administrative court temporarily overturned a ban on the sale of cannabidiol (CBD) flowers and leaves in France.

Willgoss said that the protesters had no problem with medicinal cannabis or the growing of hemp to make CBD oil.

“I think it’s a great idea,” she said. “It clearly works to relieve pain and to calm people down.

“What I’m against is the size of this project. And the fact that it’s artificial – you can grow cannabis in the ground. It grows really well. 

“There are CBD plantations around here – they have to control their levels of THC really carefully. It works really well. This project started off as a young farmer from the village wanting to do a CBD plantation and wanting it to be official.”

Ironically, opposition to the plans has had a galvanising effect on the community.

“That’s something that’s been really nice,” Willgoss said. “It’s brought together a lot of people from different walks of life and also the different communities.

“A lot of people, local people who lived here all their lives will say, oh, you know, it’s just the English. It’s not true. I’m half English, half French. I’ve been living here on and off since I was six years old. 

“In fact, we had a meeting on Monday evening which one of the people who lived here all his life said, ‘this is really nice, I hope we keep up this kind of thing once this is done’, because it’s given him a different perspective on the people who live here. There are all sorts of different people. And it allows them to expand her horizons and perhaps drop a few of their prejudices.”

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