France’s Health Minister Marisol Touraine has announced a raft of proposals to reduce smoking in the country. These measures are aimed specifically at younger smokers and would-be smokers, as they are currently the most rapidly growing group in the country’s 13 million smokers. And with around 73,000 premature deaths a year from smoking in France, it is not surprising at all that their government has decided that enough is enough – but could they be going too far? Could they in fact be missing the opportunity to lead the way in Europe in turning their smokers into quitters?

The new measures announced include sensible means to protect vulnerable young minds and lungs by banning smoking in cars carrying children under 12 years of age, and in children’s play areas as well as in public parks where families may be playing.

But it goes still further. Modelling their policies on those in Australia (which have come under fire as the reason for a drop in cigarette sales down under has been called into question, coinciding as it has with an increase in cigarettes taxes, and, therefore, the price per pack), the French plan to remove all branding from cigarette packages, while adding large health warnings.

What we feel is a missed opportunity is their attitude towards e-cigarettes, as the new measures restrict advertising of e-cigs, which will then be banned completely from May 2016 (except where they are sold and in trade magazines).

Restricting awareness of one of the most promising quitting tools available anywhere is simply crazy. And, no matter whether you are in the anti-vaping camp along with the World Health Organisation, or the pro-vaping camp along with many medical, scientific and addiction specialists and professionals around the globe, there’s no denying that e-cigarettes work to wean people off cigarettes. Though some would suggest that more testing is needed to see the long-term effects of vaping, right now tens of thousands of French men and women are dying each year from the toxins in cigarettes that simply are not present in e-liquids.

Marisol Touraine, wake up and smell the sweetly scented vapours, a gag order on e-cigarettes is the worst thing France can do if it genuinely wants to save its health service budget, its population and its smokers from further unnecessary heartache.