France plans to ban disposable electronic cigarettes, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has told radio station RTL.
“It’s an important public health issue,” said Borne, adding that the government is drawing up plans for a national programme to fight tobacco use that she said was responsible for 75,000 deaths a year in France.
So-called "puff" devices generate habits among young people that can lead to tobacco addiction, she added.
However, the government does not plan to raise taxes on tobacco next year after an increase this year, the prime minister said.
French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 set out ambitious plans to tackle tobacco and alcohol, pledging more smoking-free areas and aiming to make all 20-year-olds tobacco-free by 2030.
Share Of The Market
According to the most recent Eurostat data on the e-cigarette industry, from 2019, France had the hugest share of 'vapers' in the European Union, with 6.6% of individuals using e-cigarettes regularly.
This was followed by Poland (6.0 %) and the Netherlands (5.9 %), the data showed. While it is not in the EU, Iceland holds the highest percentage of vapers on a pan-European basis, at 7.7%.
The lowest share of e-cigarette users was found in Spain (1.0%), while Turkey boasts the lowest share on a pan-European basis.
'Daily vapers' outnumbered 'occasional vapers' in Poland, Ireland, Greece, France and Portugal; this was also the case in Iceland.
Daily vaping was more prevalent among males than females among individuals aged 15 years and older, Eurostat found. This trend was consistent across all EU Member States in 2019, as well as in Iceland, Norway, and Turkey.
Notably, there was a significant gap in the daily vaping rates between men and women, with particularly pronounced differences in Poland, France, and Lithuania, where the gap was at least 1.7 percentage points.
Additional reporting by ESM
