It’s a traffic that is exploding in France: cigarettes. According to a 2020 study, more than one in 10 cigarettes smoked in France comes from the parallel market. A new number ofCorrespondentpresented by Élise Lucet and broadcast this Thursday April 18, 2024 on France 2 looks at this booming traffic, which is increasing with the new increases in the price of a packet of cigarettes, decided by the government.
For traffickers, cigarettes have become the miracle product: they bring in big profits and in the event of arrest, the risk is always almost zero. However, the police and customs services make life difficult for these traffickers. This is evidenced by the 650 tonnes of tobacco and cigarettes seized in 2022, compared to 180 tonnes in 2020. But nothing is happening.
Read also: REPORTING. On the Spanish border, the boom in tobacco shops for French people
“Cigarettes: trafficking is a hit” returns to this “parallel market”. This benefits the networks of manufacturers of counterfeit cigarettes purchased at low prices in Eastern European countries and resold in France. But also these ordinary French people who go to Belgium, Luxembourg or even Spain, to buy several hundred kilos of tobacco with the aim of reselling them to other individuals, while making a comfortable margin. Alongside the police and customs officers, but also by meeting these traffickers, Correspondent goes back the entire “cigarette industry”.
Iran: the truths of Benjamin Brière, ex-hostage
Also on the program for this show, Correspondent was able to collect the exclusive confidences of Benjamin Brière, released alongside Bernard Phélan after three years in prison in Iran.
Arrested in May 2020 by the Revolutionary Guards while traveling across Iran alone in his van, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison for espionage and propaganda. Since his return, he has tried to resume his life where he left off.
Read also: Benjamin Brière sentenced for espionage in Iran, an “unacceptable” decision for France
The 37-year-old man looks back on his three years of ordeal, on his battles to assert his rights with the administration which does not have a “former state hostage” box. He is also on the front line to support the relatives of Cécile Kohler and Louis Arnaud, still imprisoned in Iran.
Report from Gaza, on the brink of the abyss
Gaza has been living under bombs and under Israeli and Egyptian blockade for 6 months. Entire villages have been razed, tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, including humanitarian workers in this area where no journalists can enter. Correspondent asked the last Palestinian humanitarians and cameramen present on site to transmit images of this war from the inside.
Read also: Israel-Hamas war: what we know about this buffer zone wanted by the Jewish state in Gaza
Reporters also visited the crossing point between Israel and Gaza, where Israeli extremists are trying to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching the Gazan population as famine threatens. The report also takes us to meet Israeli survivors of the October 7 massacre, carrying a message of peace. In Gaza, the number of children killed pushes the UN to call for a ceasefire, and certain NGOs to denounce a potential genocide.
They built their house with their own hands
Finally, the show will return to the stories of these French people who chose to build their house with their own hands. Each year, between 8,000 and 10,000 people embark on the adventure, or 5 to 6% of all houses built. An adventure not always crowned with success.
Read also: TESTIMONY. “We are destitute”: in Quimper, the construction of their house has been at a standstill for a year
In Reims, Clélia and Adrien build the traditional house of their dreams themselves. Objective: to limit costs as much as possible. In the Var, retirees are building… their hamlet of ecological houses. Some, like Damien and Carole in Normandy, choose a hybrid model: the “ready to finish” house, where the elements are brought to the site, it is up to the owners to assemble this immense construction set…
In any case, it will take them all several months, or even several years, to complete their project… If they manage to see it through to the end.
France 2 9:10 p.m.
