Question 829 — commerce and crafts

Summary

Mr. Yoann Gillet questions the Minister to the Prime Minister, responsible for the budget and public accounts, on the alarming progression of the parallel tobacco market in France. In the preamble to the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control of May 21, 2003, the signatory States, first and foremost France, recognize that concerted action is necessary to eliminate all forms of illicit trade in cigarettes and other tobacco products, including smuggling, illegal manufacturing and counterfeiting. However, according to the KPMG 2023 report on “Consumption of illicit cigarettes in Europe”, France holds the record for consumption of illegal cigarettes within the European Union. More precisely, in 2023, there will be 16.8 billion illicit cigarettes (counterfeit, contraband and Illicit Whites) which were consumed in France. This figure, which has doubled in four years, rose from 13.7% in 2019 to 33.2% in 2023, despite the promises of successive governments. According to this same report, France alone represents almost half of the volumes of illicit cigarettes consumed in the European Union, leaving countries like Greece (3.5 billion) or Germany (1.6 billion) far behind. Mr. MP draws the attention of Mr. minister on the fact that despite the 2023-2025 tobacco plan implemented by the previous government, the results are far from satisfactory. Purchases on the parallel market, mainly fueled by smuggling and counterfeiting, continue to grow at a very worrying rate and could soon represent one in two cigarettes consumed in France. From a fiscal perspective, this situation has a significant impact for the State. In 2023, tobacco counterfeiting and smuggling cost the State 7.26 billion euros in lost tax revenue. The MP notes that this phenomenon can be explained by a combination of several factors. The constant rise in the price of tobacco in France, much higher than in neighboring countries, encourages consumers to turn to parallel markets. In addition, tobacco trafficking networks have technical means very important for their illicit activities, while the resources allocated to the police are largely insufficient and the criminal response remains inadequate to prevent and punish these offenses. Thus, the MP asks the Minister to take concrete measures to effectively combat the illicit sale of tobacco and to protect the activity of French tobacconists against this parallel market which seriously distorts the competition to their detriment. He recalls for all intents and purposes that he had made concrete proposals regarding legislative developments in order to effectively combat this phenomenon.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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