“Contrary to the discourse they wish to convey, tobacconists represent a particularly lucrative profession,” denounces in a report published Thursday October 3, the Alliance Against Tobacco (ACT), which brings together around twenty anti-smoking associations. Over the year 2023, the sale of cigarettes and rolling tobacco would have generated a turnover of two billion euros, or around 90,000 euros per tobacconist, before taxes. The ACT is concerned about these results: “In 2007, a tobacconist made an average of 30,000 euros from these sales. This was three times less than today.”
Particularly at issue: the continued increase in tobacco prices which mechanically increases retailers’ revenues. The latter are remunerated via a discount of 8.25% in mainland France and 10.19% in Corsica. “The increase in taxation on tobacco products therefore benefits tobacconists,” analyzes the Alliance. And during this time, the number of smokers is not decreasing drastically. According to Public Health Francethe proportion of daily consumers has fluctuated between 24 and 25.5% since 2018.
“Deadly” public aid
Among tobacconist representatives, we regularly deplore the disappearance of almost a third of tobacco shops between 2000 and 2020. France had 23,300 tobacconists in 2021 (compared to 33,000 twenty years earlier), which still corresponds to a breeding ground for tobacconists. 80,000 jobs. The ACT denounces a “victim discourse”, which would highlight “the risk that public health policies pose on the economic situation” of retailers. In any case, the profession benefits from numerous public aid – 4.4 billion in 20 years – divided between aid for processing, aid for resuming activity and annual flat-rate support measures for the most vulnerable tobacconists.
On several occasions, the Court of Auditors has criticized these budgetary expenditures as poorly targeted and difficult to control. She also often considers them excessive in view of the situation of dealers: in 2020, tobacconists were thus in fourth place among the most remunerative professions among the 77 professions of very small businesses in commerce and crafts. The ACT speaks of a profession as “lucrative” as it is “deadly”. Every year, tobacco causes 73,000 premature deaths in France.