To coincide with World No Tobacco Day on 31 May 2013, the French government announced that it will be passing laws to limit the sale, advertising and use of e-cigarettes. The French health minister Marisol Touraine said that although electronic cigarettes would not be completely banned, the same rules that apply to tobacco cigarettes would now apply to e-cigarettes.

Essentially, this means that numerous forms of advertising, such as television commercials and advertisements in the print media, will be banned. Furthermore, the sale of electronic cigarettes to those under the age of 18 will be forbidden. Finally, the use of e-cigarettes in public places will be outlawed. All of these measures have existed since 2007 with regard to tobacco cigarettes.

This will directly affect the estimated 500,000 people who use electronic cigarettes in France.

Minister Touraine told a press conference that “I have decided that the measures which apply to tobacco will also be extended to electronic cigarettes”. She also said that “We have to set limits on this practice but nothing justifies an overall ban”, adding that there were cases in which e-cigarettes had helped people quit smoking.

The new measures announced by the French minister of health were based on recommendations made by a group of eminent French health experts, headed by Professor Bertrand Dautzenberg, a respected expert on the pulmonary system and the head of the French Office for Preventing Tobacco Use.