France to quit making cigarettes as last factory prepares to close The last remaining factory making cigarettes in France is set to close by the end of 2023, the site’s owner told its employees this week.
Issued on: 01/10/2023 - 09:08
The Manufacture Corse des Tabacs (Macotab), on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, is the last to manufacture cigarettes in France since the closure of another in the centre of the country in 2016.
Around 30 employees work at the Corsican site, down from 143 in the early 1980s.
The factory makes cigarettes on behalf of industry giant Philip Morris, which recently signalled it was ending the contract.
Contraband packets have also cut into legal sales, according to the factory’s owner Seita, the former French state-owned tobacco monopoly that is now part of the British company Imperial Tobacco.
Seita had already closed France’s last tobacco processing factory in 2019, in the traditional growing region of the Dordogne in the south-west.
Some former factories in Marseille and Lyon have found new as cultural and exhibition spaces, or even a university.
Kicking the habit Efforts by authorities to curb smoking and its health hazards, not least by prohibiting puffing in restaurants and cafes and banning ads for cigarettes, have prompted sharp reductions in cigarette sales in recent years.
Smoking remains the main cause of avoidable deaths in France, according to Santé Publique France health agency, which estimates 75,000 tobacco deaths each year.
The bulk of European production these days is in Germany and Poland.
I don’t need a cigarette to get to work or the grocery store.
Congratulations on discovering false equivalency.
Neither do you need a car in a well planned city.
Cool, I don’t live in a well planned city and I would have to immigrate out of the country to do so, or wait likely decades for reforms to make their way here. In the mean time, I’ll still need a car. I don’t need to smoke a cig in public.
Nah mate. Just rip up the streets and relay them yourself, it’s so simple smh.
I would need to drive to move to a different city. Checkmate.
Shame living in a city absolutely sucks.
Rural shitholes are MUCH worse, I spent 14 years of my life in one and I’ll never live in a small town again. 90% of them are half full of worthless drunks and losers and the rest are constantly gossiping about everyone else. Do something dumb? 99% of the town will know before you even wake up the next day.
Cities are WAY better than small town shit holes where everyone is up in everyone else’s business. Fuck small towns and the people that live in them.
To people completely lacking social skills and with below average intelligence, maybe.
Or to anyone who can’t focus when there’s a shitload of background noise, or anyone who doesn’t want to have to share a one-bedroom apartment with 3 other people just to be able to afford rent, or anyone who has difficulty in large crowds…
I’ve lived in a city before and I fucking hated it.