But France’s cigarette wars are a sign of deeper problems running through society. International criminal gangs are putting millions of euros into setting up secret illegal cigarette factories in western Europe and France is a key target market – it has among the highest taxes on cigarettes in the EU with the average price of a pack about €11. At the bottom of the chain, the young men selling a handful of packets on the street – many from Maghreb countries or Afghanistan – are often without legal papers and unable to find other work, vulnerable to gangs and making a tiny profit to survive. Those who buy the cigarettes say they cannot make ends meet so have no choice, despite risking a €135 fine if they are caught purchasing illegal tobacco.
More than one-third of cigarettes smoked in France in 2021 were bought illegally, according to KPMG research, funded by the tobacco industry.
Wonder how tobacco tax revenue is looking? NY State certainly managed to puch the price up so far that revenue fell.
Go to Adinkerke just over the Belgy border and see the car parks full of GB and F plates whose owners are stocking up on fags.
After the 2019 Eric Garner killing tobacco tax and the resultant selling of “loosies” are discussions that NY would prefer to avoid.
The fact that the normally voluble AOC has remained silent about them is………….interesting.
Ottokring,
I remember going on holiday to the Alsace and going via Luxembourg and as soon as you cross the border, there were loads of petrol stations, and each had a big shack selling cheap fags.
I’d love to know how many cigarettes get sold in a city like Metz. I doubt it’s many.
But France’s cigarette wars are a sign of deeper problems running through society. International criminal gangs are putting millions of euros into setting up secret illegal cigarette factories in western Europe and France is a key target market – it has among the highest taxes on cigarettes in the EU with the average price of a pack about €11. At the bottom of the chain, the young men selling a handful of packets on the street – many from Maghreb countries or Afghanistan – are often without legal papers and unable to find other work, vulnerable to gangs and making a tiny profit to survive.
I think I can see un problème with the plan to offer people inescapable Net Zero austerity for the rest of their lives.
‘If there weren’t buyers, there wouldn’t be any sellers; you see all types of people coming here to buy the cigarettes’
If the taxes were lower, people wouldn’t buy crap. This is what happens when the ruling gangsters decide to screw people for too much. Other gangsters cut in on their territory.
They call this the operation of the market.
But taxes on cigarettes make our overlords feel so virtuous – peasant if you won’t be told that smoking is bad for your health then we will tax them highly to teach you a lesson. We know what’s best for you and you will obey.
How ironic that by pushing the peasants towards fake fags they make health worse and get less tax.
At least cheap illegal fags are likely to remain available.
Would anyone like to make a guess how much petrol will cost per litre 2 years after the inevitable labour government, or even worse lib/lab coalition, has been in power? They will certainly know what’s best for us.
Aren’t fags about £15 a packet in the UK these days?
MC – yes, or about £30 for a small pouch of tobacco.
It’s getting to the point where it might be cheaper to smoke crack cocaïne.
A packet of ciggies in OZ is about AUD40 now (circa GBP20). I’ve never smoked and I’m doubly glad now. You’d have to mortgage your house to buy them!
I always laugh when people say the Laffer curve isn’t a thing, especially when there are so many examples like this that prove otherwise.
@Steve
“.. or about £30 for a small pouch of tobacco.”
Nope. Around £20 for 30 grams. One pack lasts me a week.
A mate of mine lives in one of the nicer parts of Davao City, Indonesia and makes his living importing cigarettes into Australia via the postal service.
Standard offer is if you don’t get your ciggies (because Aussie Post has intercepted them) then you get a free batch. Don’t know how this works in the long run, but he seems to make enough money to live a very pleasant lifestyle.
I was constantly stopped when I used to commute from Austria on both sides of the De and Oe border. The question was always the same :” Have you been to the Czech Republic ? Have you any cigarettes ?”
To my disappointment the rozzers never said “I’m gasping for a fag.”
Although at petrol stations in northern Germany it used to be possible to buy a five pack of cigars for 5Reichsmarks. My bro in law smoked them and never complained.
@Steve and VFS. Locally, here on the East Coast, smuggled tobacco can be bought for £40 per sleeve of 200 branded ciggies; £4 per 50 gramme (pendantry!) branded rolling tobacco.
PS Have tried the latter – purely for research purposes – and can’t tell the difference.
PPS Yes, I do mean £4 for 50 grammes of branded rolling tobacco!
Go to Adinkerke just over the Belgy border
Mont Noir. A village high street of tabacs with a few restaurants so you can get a bite to eat & a drink whilst you’re there. The Spanish side of the border at Bourg Madame’s not dissimilar. Curiously Llivia – the Spanish town that actually inside France, some distance from the frontier – isn’t.
Good to see wider France is doing its bit for market forces, though. The last 15 years of living in London I reckon I must have bought a legitimate packet of fags half a dozen times. And everybody else I knew was doing the same. The tax HMRC didn’t benefit from must run into the 10’s of thousands a year. Politicians got what they deserved.
smuggled tobacco can be bought for £40 per sleeve of 200 branded ciggies; £4 per 50 gramme (pendantry!) branded rolling tobacco.
Wonderful how free markets can bring prices down to where they’re cheaper than where they’re smuggled from. Budget brands here are more than that, let alone mainstream.
Of course they could be fakes. But so what, as long as consumers are happy with them? With genuine brands (pre-tax) you’re paying mostly for the brand.
John Galt
Davao City? Not in Indonesia, I think. In Mindanao, Philippines, where there are a lot of muslim extremists. The Oz authorities would check quite a lot of packages sent from there. I think your mate needs to relocate.
and
I seem to remember from when I was in France the buralistes in border areas going all yellow vest on the govt. Some divisiveness between those who wanted less tax and those who wanted other countries to tax more.
In the States Indian reservations have long sold cigarettes cheap. I don’t smoke, but it’s hard not to notice the signs when you pass by a reservation. Gasoline is cheaper on the rez too, especially near one of their casinos.
International criminal gangs are putting millions of euros into setting up secret illegal cigarette factories in western Europe
It seems these really are a thing (it’s the ‘Ndraguia, so one can never be sure), but why ‘build a factory’ – surely it’s much cheaper and easier to smuggle them in?
View from the Solent – 50g is a small pack, 30g is Fun Size.
As a Renaissance Man, I just can’t say no to a kebab and a spliff.
Name and address witheld – we should be fag friends!
Yes. Brain fuzz. I meant the Philippines. Too many years of living in Penang, Malaysia.
Dave laughs at those who call the Philippines dangerous. He reads news of the knife attacks from London (where he was born) and shudders with horror. Not saying the Philippines doesn’t have problems but with a bit of self-awareness it’s as safe as anywhere and the price differentials (especially with untaxed foreign earnings) make up for a lot.
As for sending things by post from there to Australia, the economics seems to work well enough. I don’t know how many packages are intercepted by Aussie Mail, but not enough to destroy his smuggling operation.
He’s had some customers receiving a monthly subscription for years, so my guess would be that if anything the Aussie Mail is inundated and doesn’t have enough manpower to deal with the flood of stuff into Australia.
I would imagine that more is coming over in shipping containers than anything else or smuggled via “fishing boats” across the straights from Indonesia / Philippines.
Can’t think where else the supply of “chop chop” tobacco would come from.
@TBH “I always laugh when people say the Laffer curve isn’t a thing”
It’s because people like Spud wilfully miss-define it as being an argument that lower taxes bring in more revenue, which of course Laffer (who himself admits he never invented the concept which was mentioned by Keynes, Adam Smith and even a 14th century Islamic scholar named Ibn Khaldun) never said.
It’s just that there’s a ‘sweet spot’ for tax rates and both above AND below that, you’ll bring in less revenue.
As you say, bleeding obvious.