Speed is the essence in plain packaging protest

Protesting against a bill that would require all cigarettes in France to be sold in standardized packaging from May next year, tobacconists in the Midi-Pyrénées and Corrèze regions recently covered speed cameras with black trash bags, according to a France 24 story relayed by the TMA.

Frédéric Vergnes, president of Corrèze’s tobacconist union, was quoted as saying that “[b]y attacking speed cameras, we want to have an impact on the state’s tax revenues”.

Meanwhile, Joaquim Rompante, president of the tobacconist union in the Gironde region, said that tobacconists in Bordeaux had covered cameras along the city’s ring road with plastic with signs saying: “Getting rid of my tobacconists will not reduce smoking. No to plain packaging, no to €10 packs”.

Rompante said standardized packaging would be “the death of tobacconists”.

He said France’s 26,000 tobacconists employed 100,000 people and that standardized packaging would create unemployment.

The standardized packaging bill was approved by the National Assembly on April 3 and will go before the Senate on July 22.