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Obligatory vaccinations for kids, cigarettes at €10: the changes that are planned for France

The French PM has laid out some of the changes his government hopes to bring about over the coming years.

Published: 4 July 2017 17:39 CEST

Obligatory vaccinations for kids, cigarettes at €10: the changes that are planned for France

Photo: AFP

Prime minister Edouard Philippe laid out the government's plans for France in a speech in front of the French parliament on Tuesday.

Here are the main changes planned.

The price of cigarettes will steadily rise to €10

This is part of the government's battle against tabacco. The current price of a packet of cigarettes in France is €7.

Health minister Agnès Buzyn said that her aim is “for the children born today to be France's first generation of non-smokers.”

Vaccines for children will be obligatory

Highlighting the fact that some diseases “have returned to France”, Philippe said that vaccines for young children that are unanimously recommended by health authorities will become obligatory from 2018. The Local has already reported that this was a priority for the French Health Minister.

France plans to make 11 vaccinations compulsory for children

Reimbursement of glasses, dental healthcare and hearing aids

The prime minister has said that from now until the end of the five-year term, French people will no longer pay for glasses, dental healthcare and hearing aids.

The state of emergency will end on November 1st

Echoing the words of France's new president, Emmanuel Macron, the prime minister said in his speech that the state of emergency will come to an end on November 1st and at the same time a new raft of anti-terrorism laws will be introduced.

The baccalaureat will be reformed

Philippe assured MPs that the baccalaureat – the exams taken by most French 18-year-olds at the end of their time at the Lycée, or upper secondary school – will be reformed by 2021.

National Service

The government will introduce a new national service for young people, as President Emmanuel Macron had promised during his election campaign. The government will reflect on the form the new national service will take over the coming months.

Environment

As part of a pledge to become carbon neutral by 2050 France will no longer give licenses for oil and gas exploration. And 100 percent of plastic will be recycled in France by 2025.

Employee contributions to be cut for low paid workers

Deductions taken from the lowest paid workers will be cut with the aim of giving those on the minimum wage (Around €1,480 a month) greater spending power. Philippe said the cut would save those on the minimum wage €250 a year.

France to cut corporate tax to 25 percent by 2022

The French government will progressively slash corporate tax from 33.3 percent to 25 percent by 2022. Businesses must want to set up and develop on our territory rather than elsewhere,” Philippe told parliament, adding the corporate tax cut will bring France “in line with the European average”.

Universal access to high-speed internet from 2022

Philippe promised that access to high-speed internet would be guaranteed across the whole of France by the end of his five-year term.

Public spending must be cut

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told parliament Tuesday that the public debt, currently running at 2.147 trillion euros, was “intolerable”.

“We are dancing on a volcano that is rumbling ever louder,” Philippe told the newly elected National Assembly, announcing plans to wean the French off their “addiction to public spending”.

Council tax (taxe d'habitation) to be reformed

Philippe highlighted council tax in his speech, calling it “unfair” and saying that it will be reformed during his time as prime minister.

This reform, which will be consulted on with local authorities, will in turn increase the majority of the French people's spending power.

Some social benefits to increase

The prime minister laid out plans to increase benefits for disabled adults and raise the minimum benefit for the elderly from 2018.

France to launch 50-bn-euro investment plan

France will launch “a grand investment plan” worth 50 billion euros ($56.7 billion) in areas including the environment, health, agriculture and transport.

Stressing the importance of “investing in the sectors of the future”, Philippe told parliament that the package would also focus on developing skills.

Regulations around new housing to be relaxed

A law will be introduced in the autumn simplifying the procedures around building housing. In his speech, Philippe promised fewer obstacles in the granting of construction permits.

Defense budget will amount to 2 percent of GDP

France's defense budget will be brought to 2 percent of the country's GDP.

France to meet EU deficit targets

Philippe also reiterated the government's ambition of bringing the deficit within an EU limit of 3.0 percent of GDP this year.

Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.