On the 24 of August 2011, the French government announced a proposal to introduce a tax on sweetened drinks. The European Public Health Alliance welcomes the initiative and calls for its scope to be broadened to all soft drinks.
The European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) congratulates the French government for its initiative that represents a step forward in the fight against overweight, obesity and diet-related diseases.
– EPHA open Letter to the French Government (French version)
It is worth noting that France is the third country (after Denmark and Hungary, going in that direction within a year, as a reaction to the economic crisis.
EPHA welcomes the initiative as the price of a product clearly influences its purchase. Over the last few years, we have witnessed an increasing
consumption of products high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS), that are available at a cheap price and made more attractive due to sophisticated marketing techniques.
However, EPHA calls on the French governement to expand the scope of the draft tax to include all soft drinks, and not only those that are sweetened. For example, applying a tax only on sweetened drinks may lead to an unintentional increase in the consumption of sugar-free drinks that are high in aspartame. Aspartame has been questioned as being carcinogenic and this is being assessed by the European Food Safety Agency.
In general, the European Public Health Alliance strongly supports the introduction of fiscal measures that would apply on a multi-nutrient basis. Pricing interventions have been shown to produce meaningful
changes in patterns of food consumption and a reduction in diet-related diseases, particularly when applying to saturated fat, sugar and salt.
In addition EPHA encourages the French government to consider using other fiscal measures to make healthy options of fruit, vegetables, wholegrain cereals and pulses more widely available and affordable. This is a cost-effective governmental intervention that would
benefit to the population health as well as to the economy in general through the reduction of disease, and subsequent healthcare costs as well as through preventing a loss of working days due to illness.
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