• Until Friday, it is skin cancer prevention and screening week.

  • The opportunity, a few days before summer, to remind you of the basics of protecting your skin against the sun.

  • With 15,000 new cases of melanoma per year, the French can better question good gestures, but also concerning self-examination.

Saving your skin can mean a long-sleeved T-shirt or smearing tons of cream.

With these last days a mixed heat wave - deconfinement, the return to the terrace or to the beach is done with a smile… but not always with sunscreen.

This is why, a few days before the summer and a few weeks before the school holidays, dermatologists are resuming their loudspeakers to remind people that the sun feels good, but in small doses.

Hence this reminder, in video, of the BA-BA to know about skin cancer.

Half of the French would not wear sunscreen

In all, 80,000 cases of skin cancer are diagnosed in France each year, making it "the most common cancer", underlines the National Union of Venereological Dermatologists (SNDV), which is piloting this week of prevention and screening.

"People have to live, but it seems important to us to remind us of the advice on photoprotection," Luc Sulimovic, SNDV president, told AFP.

Because paradoxically, "although almost everyone knows that excessive exposure to the sun can be harmful, far too few people protect themselves in practice," he emphasizes.

Indeed, according to an Ipsos survey for this union unveiled by

Le Parisien

, 42% of French people admit to never or rarely applying sunscreen, and 57% do not wear a hat or cap.

Clothing protection above all

The union therefore tries to repeat the basic advice to prevent a melanoma from sending you to chemotherapy. No, UV booths do not "prepare" the skin for the sun, and the best protection "is not sunscreen, it's clothing protection, the absence of exposure between noon and 4 p.m., and wearing a hat and sunglasses ”, summarizes the doctor. In an interview for

20 Minutes

, dermatologist Catherine Oliveres-Ghouti also insisted: skin protection is not just on vacation or at the beach. Wine growers, construction workers, mountaineers, barbecue enthusiasts or lawn mowers should also think about sunscreens and headgear.

This year, the whole operation takes place on the Web.

The sauveur-sa-peau.fr site lists true / false and offers simple messages from dermatologists, relayed on social networks.

The operation, supported by several cosmetic brands, will also be based on tutorials and discussions with “influencers” specializing in skin advice.

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