This article was automatically translated from HIBAPRESS, the Arabic version:
Hibapress
From July 1, cigarettes will be prohibited in France in many public spaces frequented by children, especially on beaches, parks and near schools, announced the French Minister of Labor, Health, Solidarities and Families, Catherine Vautrin.
“Where there are children, tobacco must disappear,” said Ms. Vautrin in an interview published in the West France newspaper in anticipation of World Day without Tobacco (May 31).
The prohibition of tobacco concerns many public places, in particular in sports or shelters, according to the minister who warns that non-compliance with this decision “may generate a 4th class ticket, or 135 euros”.
And to add that the prohibition perimeter around schools will be specified in the implementation decree.
“We are determining it with the Council of State, and we will trust elected officials to put it in place pragmatically,” said the minister.
Colleges and high schools are also affected by the ban, to avoid in particular that “middle and high school students smoke in front of their establishment”, according to Ms. Vautrin.
The minister who starts from the conviction that the freedom of smoking “stops where the right of children begins to breathe a pure air,” relies on alarming figures. “Smoking kills 75,000 people each year in France. This represents 200 people per day. This is the leading cause of avoidable mortality, ”warned Ms. Vautrin who also evokes the cost of certain cancers for Social Security.
“A life is priceless, but cancers cost 150 billion euros per year, which is not nothing when we think of the financial situation of our social model. Tobacco is not an individual problem, it is a collective scourge, ”she insisted.
Tobacco remains the leading cause of “avoidable” mortality in France, responsible for more than 75,000 deaths each year, had previously alerted the France Health Agency France which wants to give new momentum to its national prevention campaign on the occasion of World Day without tobacco, the objective being to make May 31 a trigger day, around the message: “One day to try to stop”.
To strengthen the impact of mobilization, the French public agency activated on Wednesday “a viral system” on social networks with the ambition to create a collective momentum “without tobacco”, it is recalled.
