VIDEO. “Normal, you pay €8 for a packet of cigarettes instead of €13”: faced with contraband, tobacconists are paying the price in Montpellier as elsewhere

Ce lundi, au plan Cabanes, à Montpellier, une trentaine de buralistes mobilisés autour de Jérémy Pézières, leur représentant. Midi Libre – T. J.

This Monday, tobacconists have once again sounded the alarm. They are demanding concrete and urgent action to limit this well-known and localized traffic that controls 40% of the cigarette market.

“There's one downstairs from my house, I live in Saint-Eloi. As soon as I arrived in Montpellier, I noticed it. You can see it right away. You go in, you tell them the brand you want, and they bring it to you. It takes thirty seconds. The only thing they ask of us now is to pay in cash. Before there was even a TPE.”

Estelle (assumed name) is 21 years old. She is a student. Smoker regular, she almost never buys from a tobacconist but from a “alim“, for “general food“. One of those famous grocery stores in the crosshairs of the public authorities. Inside, Estelle now knows the whole gang. The informal address is de rigueur. No worries about first names and nicknames. “There's never anyone in the store, the butter or the rusks, inside it's much too expensive, she explains. People come especially for that, for the cigarettes. Normal, you pay €8 per packet instead of €13.”

“In the packets, there were tubes, not cigarettes”

Unfair competition ? Quality ? This student is not very picky. Although… “I've already gotten confused. Two, three times. I took my pack, I saw that it had already been opened, it wasn't the original packaging, and inside, they were tubes, they weren't cigarettes. They smoked super fast and there was very little tobacco.”

 

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The reality of the mystery visitor

In February 2024, a study was conducted conducted as part of a mission by Patrick Vignal, then a member of parliament. 34 grocery stores had been tested in Montpellier by a “mysterious visitor”.

Three-quarters of them (76%) were selling contraband cigarettes:
– 9 were already under administrative closure;
– of the remaining 25, 64% sold directly and 12% were… out of stock.

The modus operandi is well-known in these illicit businesses. Known even to the authorities. Sébastien Cote, deputy mayor in charge of security, testifies to this. “The cigarettes are generally not in the store, otherwise they know that if the police arrive, things will go badly. The cigarettes are outside, in the trunk of a car, and they go back and forth.” The elected official knows what he is talking about, he testifies to having four such stores near his home, “150 m”, in his neighborhood. In short, more than enough to make tobacconists mad with anger. So this Monday, February 3, all over France, they mobilized to deplore (the word is not strong enough) the situation and demand concrete and urgent measures.

In 2024, 40% of the market has escaped tobacconists, in order

In Montpellier, this Monday lunchtime, around thirty of them had met in a symbolic place, because it was plagued by this traffic: the Cabanes plan. According to Jérémy Pézières, their representative, in 2019, 23% of the cigarettes that were sold did not come from their network. In 2023, it is 40%. It is progressing very quickly. At the end of 2025, it will be 50%. So many sales that escape taxation and endanger the business of tobacconists, who pay their charges, rent, employees if necessary. “In 2024, we had a 15% drop in the volume of our sales in Hérault, and a third of regular smokers did not enter a tobacconist”, underlines the professional. Although he thanks the prefect and mayor for certain actions, this remains insufficient.

“We are at €13 a pack, they are at €7, in Spain €5.50”

“On some packs we are at €13. They are at €7. In Spain, it is €5.50. We can't resist, deplores Pascal, who has just settled in the neighborhood. Around us, these cigarettes, we find them everywhere. And they don't only sell cigarettes.” In addition to being angry, he is disillusioned. For him, the public authorities can do nothing. “There are too many of them. And then what's going to happen? Whoever gets arrested with three packs of cigarettes, what does he risk? Nothing at all!“

Shisha bars are illegal by definition

Sébastien Cote agrees. Limiting this traffic and all the nuisances that go with it is very complicated. The deputy for security acknowledges that as things stand“not really having the means to act against a certain number of failing businesses”. However, he sees one or two solutions that would make his mission easier. Starting with regulating shisha bars, which, by definition, are illegal. “We need to create a status, he says. In France, it doesn't exist, so these establishments have a catering license, yet it is forbidden to smoke in a public place.” This would facilitate checks. He also hopes for a kind of pre-emption on business funds. At least to be informed of transactions on real estate companies. The best weapon to fight against this scourge, however, remains the closure of these establishments (around a hundred in 2023). But a limited and temporary weapon… if it is not circumvented. In the meantime, it is the regular tobacconists who see their turnover go up in smoke.

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