Declining Cigarette Output to Shut France's Last Cigarette Factory in December

The last cigarette factory in France will close, resulting in 29 employees losing their jobs, due to declining cigarette output and a continuous drop in legal tobacco sales, replaced by smuggled and counterfeit products. Currently, most cigarette production in Europe is concentrated in Germany and Poland. The health minister is considering using e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid.

According to Corse-MAT, the last cigarette factory in France (Macotab) will close in December. This tobacco factory is located in Furiani (Haute-Corse).

It is reported that the factory produces about 850 million cigarettes annually. This decision is made against the backdrop of "restructuring projects for certain businesses in Europe," as the legal sales volume of cigarettes in France continues to decline, replaced by smuggled and counterfeit products. At the same time, Philip Morris International has terminated some production contracts with Macotab, leading to the final decision to close. For the same reasons, the Coretab packaging plant in Réunion is also in the process of closing.

The Macotab cigarette factory is the last cigarette manufacturing plant in France since the closure of the Riom factory in 2016, now with only 29 employees in a production area of 10,000 square meters. Currently, most cigarette production in Europe is concentrated in Germany and Poland.

Established in 1961, the Macotab factory belongs to the Seita (Tobacco and Matches Industrial Development Company) group, which was privatized from the French tobacco monopoly and became a subsidiary of Imperial Brands in 1995, producing cigarettes for Corsica and other regions of France.