An anti-public health measure denounced by tobacco specialists, the principle of a tax on vaping was nevertheless adopted in the middle of the night by the French National Assembly. FIVAPE denounces the intolerable influence of the tobacco industry.
This is a major victory for the tobacco industry.
Amendment 2885 by rapporteur Charles de Courson (LIOT), and sub-amendments 3770 by Claire Marais-Beuil (RN) and 3760 by Christine LOIR (RN) were adopted by the National Assembly on the night of November 8-9. Debated immediately afterwards, the amendment proposing an increase in cigarette prices was rejected.
In short, a majority of MPs voted in favor of a tax on e-liquids (between €0.05 and €0.15 per milliliter), while rejecting any increase in the price of cigarettes.
Vape has lost millions of customers to the tobacco industry, whose growing influence against its best enemy is more alarming than ever. France is preparing to tax the most effective aid to smoking.1 and therefore the most popular smoking cessation aid among smokers, which amounts to creating a new tax on smoking cessation, in the obvious interests of the tobacco industry.
Tax code versus public health code
If they were to be definitively adopted, the terms of application of these "anti-public health measures", as denounced by tobaccologists, would be as follows2would imply a major change in the status of vaping.
Indeed, since the transposition of the European directive on tobacco products in 20163vape has been governed by the French Public Health Code, under the supervision of the Minister of Health. However, the introduction of an excise tax on the vaping category would move vape into the tax code, whose supervisory authority is the Ministry of the Budget.
Thus, vaping, the No. 1 tool for quitting smoking, would be managed only to be taxed and, by extension, discouraged. While behavioral taxes are a means of combating harmful consumption, applied to vaping they would have the opposite effect.
Equally alarming, this change of authority would eliminate any possibility of including vaping in a public health policy to combat smoking, which is responsible for 20% of all cancers, and the leading cause of avoidable death, with 75,000 deaths per year. At a time when vape is France's No. 1 smoking cessation tool!
Submitting the regulation of vaping to the tax code in place of the public health code is an unheard-of societal project, which summons and engages the responsibility of all players who openly support4 anti-smoking tax measures, and calls into question the reality of our country's collective will to effectively combat smoking.
Cigarette makers versus the French vape industry
FIVAPE commissioned XERFI to carry out a study5 on the economic impact of taxing e-liquids by the milliliter.
According to current assumptions, the products of vapo-cigarette makers (vape brands created by the tobacco industry), i.e. non-refillable sealed cartridges that are not very effective in terms of smoking cessation, could increase by just 2.5%, whereas the price of e-liquids for open systems, promoted by the independent sector which accounts for 85% of national sales, would rise by up to +600% depending on the format!
In addition to curbing the growth of vaping and maintaining cigarette sales, this tax would give the tobacco industry a competitive tax break over the French vape industry. According to XERFI, in less than 6 months' time, 50% of the tobacco industry's independent companies and over 5,000 jobs in the French vape sector will be under threat.
At the forefront of the fight against smoking, having helped millions of French people to quit, vape professionals are in danger of disappearing in favor of the tobacco industry. As a result, the French will no longer consume products made in France, and shopkeepers who specialize in helping people quit smoking will be replaced by tobacconists and the black market, with all the health risks associated with the consumption of uncontrolled, unregulated products.
All is not lost...
Members of parliament have now completed their examination of the first part of the Finance Bill - PLF.
It should be noted that the government rejected all amendments aimed at taxing vaping.
Votes and explanations of vote on this first part of the PLF will take place on Tuesday November 12, after questions to the government. The text to be sent to the Senate is likely to include the proposed tax on e-liquids.
On the other hand, there is a plausible scenario in which the text submitted to the Senate does not contain the proposed tax: if the government activates article 47 al. 2 of the constitution from November 21, and if it does not include the proposed tax in the text of the PLF that it will then submit to the Senate.
FIVAPE strongly reaffirms to all its interlocutors, elected representatives and public authorities, that no tax on vaping is acceptable or justified from a health point of view. This project, like any other obstacle to vaping, is totally counter-productive in the fight against smoking in France.
FIVAPE is working with its lawyers to explore all avenues of appeal to ensure that this proposed tax is inadmissible, even if it means undermining the PLF as a whole.
The current sequence of events has mobilized the entire industry. They are joining FIVAPE en masse, which now represents nearly 800 companies and thousands of jobs.
We won't let the tobacco industry and its allies wipe out our industry and our commitment to helping the 15 million people who still smoke in France.
CONTACT: SOLENN PETITJEAN - LABEL RP - 06 85 03 05 29 - solenn.p@labelrp.com
- Smoking cessation: vape with nicotine in the top 3 most effective aids ︎
- France Info : No increase in tobacco prices in 2025 but perhaps an anti-vape tax : "An anti-public health measure", denounces a tobaccologist ︎
- Public Health Code: vaping products ︎
- Alliance contre le tabac, press release dated October 24, 2024: PLF et PLFSS 2025: LA HAUSTE DE LA FISCALITÉ DES PRODUITS DU TABAC ET L'INTERDICTION DES SACHETS DE NICOTINE SONT LES COMBATS PRIORITAIRES ︎
- Contact us to receive the XERFI impact study ︎