2023-08-23 14:47:22
Elisabeth Borne said on Wednesday that the government did not plan to increase taxes on alcohol, which the French Federation of Addictology regrets.
“It’s a big disappointment for us”reacts Amine Benyamina, the president of the French Federation of Addictology on franceinfo Wednesday August 23, following the Prime Minister declared on France Bleu that the government had no plans to increase taxes on alcohol. “We might have done a double blow” with “a good measure of both public and economic health”, regrets the professor of psychiatry and addictologist.
>> What to remember from the interview with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on France Bleu
franceinfo: How do you react to this announcement?
Amine Benyamina: I am really very disappointed. With a measure like this, we might have done a double blow. That is to say, having a real public health measure, which has shown its effectiveness elsewhere than in France, such as in the United Kingdom, and we might have garnered some revenue which might have lightened the burden of the French. Alcohol is very expensive for the French, alcohol-related diseases cost regarding 110 billion euros per year.
How to explain the increase in the price of a pack of cigarettes for several years and not of alcohol?
The tobacco is made abroad so it’s more consensual. France is a country with a wine culture.
“We all have a very ambivalent relationship with alcohol, and wine in particular”
Amine Benyamina, from the French Federation of Addictologyat franceinfo
None of the governments, whatever the political color, has managed to have the courage to put in place a real public health policy, while reconciling the possibility of keeping a wine industry afloat. Yet it is possible, we have said and written many times.
Has alcohol consumption decreased in countries that have increased their taxes?
In Russia, for example, before the events [la guerre en Ukraine], the price of strong alcohols has been multiplied by a very large number and the number of deaths and the number of alcohol-related illnesses have been reduced. There is an almost arithmetic effect of a virtuous pendulum between the price of products that cause illness and the number of illnesses and deaths.
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