Gard tobacconists have just left for the Spanish border to show their anger

Les buralistes gardois partent en direction de la frontière espagnole pour manifester leur colère.

Ils vont rejoindre, au Boulou, leurs homologues des Pyrénées-Orientales.

The Gard tobacconists are angry and this is not the first time that they have made it known. This Thursday, February 1, after meeting at 6 a.m. at the Marché Gare, it was at the Spanish border, in Boulou, that they went to join their counterparts from Pyrénées-Orientales to demonstrate their strong dissatisfaction, the word is still weak, on all the anomalies affecting their profession and which they denounce.

Cigarettes: disproportion with foreign countries

For Ghislaine Mazoyer, the president of the Gard tobacconists' union chamber: "This cannot go on any longer, there is too much disproportion between the measures in force abroad, at home the country that is doing us the most harm is Spain, and those applied in France. A package that costs 5.50 € in Spain worth 12.50 € at our place. It’s also a rant against increases, there has already been that of 1€ in January and today some packages cost 50 cents. We are told that these measures reduce the number of smokers, so why during Covid, when supplies abroad was not possible, were we found the 1,600,000 smokers who did not come no longer at home ? People talk to us about health, we are not against a health policy, but it must be the same everywhere. Is the tobacco sold in Spain magical ? It doesn't hurt ? We want European harmonization." 

Counterfeits

The other points of discontent are also in the news. "With night grocery stores, it’s a mafia network that is favored, continues Ghislaine Mazoyer. Ithere is also counterfeiting, all this represents 38% of sales outside the network, as much money that the state does not see." 

Ghislaine Mazoyer, Corinne Laffare and Vincent Garcia, the members of the office, were able to mobilize tobacconists, from all over Gard, to go and block the border with their Catalan friends, hoping to finally be heard.