Europe 1 //Photo credits: SEBASTIEN LAPEYRERE / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 5:15 p.m., February 20, 2024
After an initial increase at the beginning of January, tobacco prices will experience a further increase from March 1, 2024. This increase is between 50 to 75 cents depending on the pack.
The price of tobacco continues to soar. Already, since January 1, several brands of cigarettes, rolling tobacco or cigars and cigarillos have increased their prices by 50 cents. From March 1, same story, some brands of cigarettes will experience an increase in their prices, according to a decree published on February 9 in the Official Journal.
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Increase from 50 to 75 cents
Winflied, Pall Malls, Vogue, Lucky Strike, Rothmans... the price of these packages will increase by 50 to 75 cents according to the French customs website. This increase will also affect packs of 30 units, such as Winfield Red XXL and Lucky Strike Blue XXL, which will go from 17.25 euros to 18 euros.
Conversely, some of the best-selling brands, which had already increased on January 1, are not moving, such as Marlboro, Camel, News, Gauloises, Chesterfield, or even Fortuna. Happy news for smokers of Winston Origin Red, the package will also drop by 50 cents and therefore goes from 12 euros to 11.5 euros.
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Anti-smoking plan: will drastically increasing prices make the 12 million French smokers stop?
These increases in the price of the pack are reducing cigarette sales from year to year - 8% less in 2023 compared to 2022 according to Customs - but this does not make the French smoke less. According to the latest data from Public Health France, in 2022, more than three in ten French people aged 18 to 75 smoked (31.8%). There were even a quarter of them who did it daily (24.9%), or nearly 12 million people.