French authorities are to act more vigorously to control the trade in counterfeit and smuggled tobacco products, Public Action and Accounts Minister Gabriel Attal said in remarks published on Sunday.
"My aim is clear: to dry up the illegal market and pursue the traders," Attal told the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche.
He said that he would provide the means to improve surveillance at ports, airports and in postal distribution centres with the aim of uncovering 10 illegal networks per year.
Attal called for penalties for illegal trading in cigarettes to be increased. "We aim to punish illegal market traders in tobacco the way we do illegal market traders in drugs," he said.
Importing or smuggling tobacco should be subject to a jail term of five - rather than the current three - years, and sale with three years, instead of one, the minister said.
He also called for foreign illegal traders to be deported.
According to the minister, more than 600 tons of cigarettes have been seized by French customs over the first 10 months of this year, by comparison with 238 tons seized in the whole of 2017.
This implied a loss to the French treasury of up to €3 billion ($3.2 billion), he said.
