Presidential Elections: 19 Health Associations Call on Candidates to Take Action Against Smoking

Nineteen public health associations are calling on presidential candidates to commit to an ambitious anti-smoking policy. The signatories emphasize the need to end the "industrial and health scandal of smoking" and to protect younger generations from the tobacco epidemic.

The appeal, led by the Alliance Against Tobacco (ACT), was co-signed by associations such as the League Against Cancer, the National Committee Against Smoking (CNCT), the French Federation of Cardiology, and the French-speaking Society of Tobacco Studies. For the signatories, strengthening anti-smoking measures meets a real need on the part of the French population. Indeed, according to the Alliance Against Tobacco, 87% of French people are in favor of a Tobacco-Free Generation by 2030, while nine out of ten adolescents would like to live in a tobacco-free world. Beyond respecting the measures already in place and pursuing a dynamic tax policy, the associations are calling on candidates to commit to three measures in particular:[1].

Organize the gradual end of tobacco sales to protect future generations

Public health associations are campaigning to end tobacco sales for all people born after 2012. However, as a study conducted by the CNCT (National Center for Tobacco Control) demonstrated, 651,000 tobacconists sold tobacco products to minors in 2019, despite the ban implemented ten years earlier. The associations are therefore proposing tougher penalties for violators of this public health provision. According to the ACT, seven out of ten French people currently support such a ban on tobacco sales.

Ban the presence of tobacco near all educational establishments

According to the signatories of this appeal, the consumption of tobacco products around schools exposes younger generations to secondhand smoke and contributes to the trivialization and normalization of tobacco consumption. Thus, the associations reiterate the imperative of "expanding entirely tobacco-free zones, particularly for places frequented by minors." Here again, such a measure meets with real support from the population, since seven out of ten French people say they are in favor of the establishment of more outdoor smoke-free public spaces.

Strengthening transparency in tobacco industry lobbying: a challenge for the presidential elections

In France, as elsewhere, tobacco industry interference in public decision-making is the main obstacle to implementing effective public health policies and, therefore, to reducing the tobacco epidemic. This pressure exerted by the tobacco industry is, however, contrary to the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which limits, in Article 5.3, interactions between manufacturers and decision-makers to the strict minimum. To better neutralize the tobacco industry's influence efforts, the signatories of this appeal propose that candidates implement two measures. First, require parliamentarians to declare the authors and instigators of the amendments they submit, and second, impose transparency in interactions by requiring the publication of a report of all exchanges between decision-makers and the tobacco industry.

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[1] Alliance against tobacco, Tobacco-Free Generation: 9 out of 10 teenagers would like to live in a tobacco-free world, 01/14/2022, (accessed 01/18/2022)