Cakes, chocolate, pastries: MPs in favor of extending the “soda tax” to sweet products

MEPs approved this Wednesday the extension of taxation on sweet products, as part of the examination in the Social Affairs Committee of the social security budget for 2027.

The government text plans to extend the “soda tax” created in 2012 to prepackaged sweet products richest in sugar, in particular “pastries, pastries, biscuits and industrial cakes, breakfast cereals, cereal bars as well as confectionery and chocolate products”, according to the explanatory statement of the article. The objective of the tax is to lead manufacturers to change their formulas, and ultimately to reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases linked to nutrition. Manufacturers were alarmed at the end of September by this project, predicting an increased bill for consumers.

Nutri-Score, artisans, AOP: the amendments approved by the deputies

The RN, its ally the UDR group, and the LR deputies tabled amendments to delete the article, worrying about a “rise in shelf prices” and a further increase in French taxation, without this necessarily having any impact on public health. But they were not adopted. The deputies, on the other hand, approved an amendment from MoDem deputy Cyrille Isaac-Sibille further extending the tax “to all ultra-processed products containing sugars”. They also approved an amendment from the RN deputy Stéphanie Galzy, excluding from the scope of the article artisans and small businesses in the food sector, with an opinion of wisdom from the rapporteur, the LR deputy Thibault Bazin.

Later in the evening, the deputies adopted, against the opinion of the rapporteur, amendments aimed at making the mention of Nutri-Score compulsory on all packaging of food products, as well as on advertising materials, with the exception of products benefiting from a protected designation of origin, or a protected geographical indication. They also approved, again against the opinion of the rapporteur, an environmentalist amendment proposing to “create a first generation without tobacco” by establishing from January 1 “a ban on the sale and free offer of tobacco to any person born on or after January 1, 2009”.

These debates serve above all as a “warming round”, with the deputies returning to the Hemicycle from the initial version of the text.