French banks accused of continuing to finance tobacco industry

Several French banks, including Société Générale, have financed the tobacco industry to the tune of over $5 billion since 2018, an anti-smoking group claimed in research published Wednesday.

French banks granted more than 5 billion dollars in loans to world's largest tobacco companies since 2018. © Reuters/Jonathan Alcorn/Files

"If the tobacco industry has succeeded in maintaining its deadly trade, it is, in part, thanks to the resources provided by banking institutions and investment funds,"  Alliance Contre le Tabac (ACT)  director Marion Catellin, said in a statement about the report.

However, he pointed out that the same banks pledged to stop funding tobacco giants six years ago. 

In 2017, the Australian NGO Tobacco-Free Portfolio introduced the Tobacco Free-Finance Pledge, which called on all international financial players to stop financing tobacco companies.

 Among the signatories were Société Générale, Crédit Agricole and the BPCE group (Banque Populaire-Caisse d'Epargne).

The report, commissioned by ACT  shows that between 2018 and 2023, these French banks granted 5.3 billion dollars in loans to British American Tobacco (Lucky Strike, Dunhill, Kent), Philip Morris International (Malboro, L&M, Chesterfield) and the Imperial Brands group (Davidoff, Drum, Rizla).

'An industry that kills'

"These bank credits are unacceptable," Catellin told France Inter.

"As World Health Organisation Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, recently stated, every investment in the tobacco industry is an investment in death and disease. By financing the tobacco industry, French banks are complicit in an industry that kills one out of every two consumers."

Société Générale accounts for 83 percent of French financial support for the tobacco industry, even though it has become "more virtuous in recent years".

"Aware of the environmental and social impacts associated with the tobacco sector, Société Générale has committed to a strategy to exit the sector," the bank told French news agency AFP.

It signed a charter to this effect in September 2023. 

French banks

The report from the investigative organisation Profundo and commissioned by ACT,  says that French banks not only granted loans to tobacco giants but also invested directly in the market.

In November last year alone, French banks totaled $733 million in investments in the tobacco industry.

Forty percent of these funds come from the BPCE Group, (Banque Populaire-Caisse d'Épargne), and over 20% from Crédit Agricole.

Tobacco is responsible for 75,000 deaths each year in France, a figure cited by ACT but confirmed by Public Health France.