Cigarettes 'should cost €13 a pack'

A PACKET of cigarettes in France should cost more than €13, so that smokers cover the full cost of the effects of their habit, a study has claimed.

Economic consultants Microeconomix calculated that the price of a packet of cigarettes in France should be €13.07, an increase of 87% on the current average price of a pack of 20, Le Parisien reports.

Economist Julien Gooris, who took part in the study, told the newspaper that taking into account the "social cost" of smoking would force those who light up to realise how much their habit costs society.

According to the study, taxes on tobacco bring in €14billion a year to State coffers, while premature deaths caused by smoking save the country €6.6billion in unpaid pensions.

But the report also said that €16.3billion is spent on health care for people with smoking-related illness each year, while a further €16billion disappears in lost production time caused by absences due to smokers’ ill-health. Premature smoking-related deaths also cost the taxman €3.3billion.

According to Microeconomix’s calculations, the total negative impact of smoking was €35.6billion a year - a shortfall of €15billion.

Smoking remains a common habit in France. An estimated 16 million French people still regularly light up, and about 73,000 tobacco-related deaths are reported in France every year.

In January, MPs MPs voted to throw out a planned 30 centime rise in the cost of a pack of cigarettes following intense lobbying by tobacconists and manufacturers.

The automatic tax rise had been due to come into force on January 1, but was struck out by an amendment to the law.

The price freeze came three months after the French government declared "war on smoking" with a hard-hitting list of new measures.

Photo: David