FRANCE: French tobacconists staged their first national strike yesterday as the government imposed a 20 per cent tax increase on cigarettes in the hope of weaning smokers off the habit and plugging a record deficit in state healthcare finances.
Over 90 per cent of the country's 34,000 outlets shut down in protest and French smokers criticised a move that will make their cigarettes among the most expensive in Europe.
"I always considered smoking a necessity, but more and more it's becoming a luxury," said Paris bank worker Arnaud Lavissat (31), puffing a cigarette on the street outside his office.
"I'm not going to stop. But we're being made to pay through the nose to prop up the healthcare system," said Mr Lavissat, who said he had smoked a packet a day for three years.
Some 300 tobacconists erected roadblocks at the border crossing with Germany near the city of Strasbourg, slowing traffic for most of the morning.
The tax rise took the price of a top brand packet of 20 cigarettes to €4.60 from €3.90, putting France high up on the league table for cigarette prices in Europe but still behind Ireland, Norway and Britain.
Tobacconists, a mainstay of everyday life who sell postage stamps, road tax discs and mobile phone cards too, said the second tax increase this year would put hundreds of them out of business as smokers quit, cut down or buy from outside France.
"This will hurt our business really badly. People already started turning to the black market after the earlier rise in January," said Philippe Evain, who runs a tobacco store at L'Agio bar in Paris's Opera district.
French cigarette prices have more than doubled in the last 10 years, prompting many smokers who live close to the borders with Germany, Spain and Belgium to buy their cigarettes in those countries.