Ahead of World No Tobacco Day next Monday, May 31, the Ligue contre le cancer publishes an investigation on Wednesday that denounces the promotion of smoking in French films.

“Tobacco remains almost omnipresent in French films.

Between 2015 and 2019, 90.7% included at least one event, object or speech related to tobacco: people smoking, presence of ashtrays, cigarettes, character talking about tobacco….

", Notes the League according to the 3rd edition of its survey conducted for sixteen years with the Ipsos institute, this time accompanied by a survey of young adults.

One scene in a movie equals six commercials

In a film, the presence of tobacco, on average 2.6 minutes, is equivalent to six commercials.

The League is also seeing a sharp increase in the rate of smokers inside social spaces in movies, a practice that is now illegal in real life.

Thus, 21.5% of smoking scenes take place in a workplace, in the office, 16.6% in a cafe, restaurant or nightclub.

Faced with this omnipresence of smoking, 58% of young people aged 18 to 24 consider that it is an incentive to smoke, and 54%, that tobacco manufacturers play a role in product placement, according to the Ipsos survey. carried out in January with 1,500 young people aged 18-34, including 1,110 aged 18-24.

18-24 year olds more and more watching films or series

This overrepresentation of tobacco in films is all the more worrying given that, since the first confinement in March 2020, 66% of 18-24 year olds indicate spending more time in front of films or series, regardless of the medium: TV, computer. , tablet, smartphone, etc.

According to the survey, animated films such as

Why I Didn't Eat My Father

and

The Little Prince

, or

Mustang

are free from reproach from a smoking point of view unlike others such as

Amis Publics

,

Les vieux fourneaux

,

We will finish together

or again

The crazy story of Max and Leon

or

J'accuse

.

Denounce the powerful tobacco lobbies

"The League has fiercely denounced the promotion of smoking in French films for more than fifteen years" underlines its president, Professor Axel Kahn.

He denounces the “campaigns as aggressive as they are insidious among the youngest” of the tobacco industry.

"We must continue to denounce the powerful tobacco lobbies who do not hesitate to provide funding to see their products appear on the screen, more or less directly," he continues.

The League does not seek to stigmatize certain films, but wishes "to help the cinema industry to stop these unacceptable practices".

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  • Cinema

  • Tobacco

  • Cancer