France moving to ban e-cigarette from public spots, says report

As well as a ban affecting e-cigarettes, France may possibly comply with Australia’s illustration by ordering plain packaging for on tobacco merchandise, says the French newspaper. Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA

France is getting ready to location e-cigarettes on the exact same legal footing as tobacco smoking with draft legislation that aims to ban their use in public locations.

The wellness minister, Marisol Touraine, intends to table a bill on 17 June bringing in anti-smoking measures, Le Figaro reported on Friday.

Not only would France become the first massive European nation to introduce the ban affecting e-cigarettes, but it would also stick to Australia’s example by ordering plain packaging for tobacco goods that display graphic pictures of diseases brought on by smoking.

The proposed bill is more prohibitive than anti-smoking measures adopted by the European parliament in February. It comes at a time when e-cigarette merchants have been springing up across France, which now has nearly one million consumers.

The president of the French Tobacconists’ Confederation, Pascal Montredon, told the Guardian that Touraine was being unrealistic by modelling her reforms on “Anglo-saxon” countries such as Australia and Britain exactly where the cigarette distribution network is fully various from France.

“Tobacconists are fed up with becoming stigmatised at a time when instead the government must be undertaking one thing about the unemployment rate,” he stated. The confederation is pressing for e-cigarettes to be offered solely in tobacconist stores, but the proposed legislation fails to handle this, he explained.

He also explained the government needed to deliver in measures to curb the parallel cigarette market which accounts for 25% of income in France.

Other critics said that studies had proven that smokers are much more influenced by loved ones and buddies in taking up smoking and that extremely number of are influenced by packaging.

Touraine’s workplace did not verify the report in Le Figaro, which was published on the eve of “globe no tobacco day”. But the ministry stated that a “nationwide smoking reduction prepare” was below consideration.

A total 73,000 French smokers die each 12 months from tobacco-relevant cancers.

France moving to ban e-cigarette from public spots, says report