Chassaing’s mother received the bill for his joyride just in time for Christmas. Her son had been “flashed” when he passed an automated roadside radar-camera. His ticket hit the mail within 48 hours. “I thought it over and realized how dumb it is to speed,” he now acknowledges contritely.
France may still reign as a bastion of worldly pleasures. But all of a sudden, the country’s cash-strapped government seems to have discovered the benefits of preaching a little self-restraint. January is the season of tax increases, and this year’s hikes attempt to guide behavior using a once maligned exercise in financial dissuasion known as the “sin tax.” The third round of aggressive tax hikes on cigarettes enacted last year goes into effect this month, boosting the tax on a 5 euro premium pack by 50 percent. The government is also taking aim at less inherently dangerous targets, like driving, by taxing gasoline and penalizing speeding. Surprisingly, in an overtaxed nation, the results brought about by the new levies are considered by many to be one of the true bright spots for an unpopular government.
Truth be told, France didn’t have much choice. President Jacques Chirac campaigned in 2002 on a pledge to reduce government expenditures and income taxes at the same time. (A 3 percent reduction takes effect in mid-January.) Where else to turn but to the purveyors of inconsiderate and potentially dangerous behavior? Smokers have been grousing that nearly 80 percent of the price of a pack of cigarettes now goes to the government. But in fact, most of the revenue is being used to help pay an estimated 15 billion euros to care for those with tobacco-related health problems. What’s more, the cigarette tax hike in October spurred thousands of smokers to try patches, call smoker hot lines or go cold turkey. A 2.5 percent increase in the gasoline tax is expected to raise 800 million euros to fund public-railway investments.
Few measures, however, have proved as successful as the campaign against speeders. When Chirac in 2002 called for a campaign against “barbaric behavior” on the roads, many French citizens nodded their heads in agreement. Nearly 8,000 people were dying annually on French roads. In early 2003, French police began dishing out tens of thousands of moving-violation citations. Then, 48 radar-cameras were turned on, and over a two-month period 160,000 automated citations were sent out, in addition to those written up by police. With a minimum citation of 90 euro, revenue from the first two months is likely to pass 15 million euros. With 1,000 radar-cameras to be installed on roadsides and atop police cars over the next two years, hundreds of millions of euros could well be raised, all destined to make France’s roads safer. “People say it can be a way to fill the state’s coffers,” says an Interior Ministry spokesman for highway safety. “The goal isn’t to raise money.”
Indeed, the results are measurable well beyond raising revenues. Nationwide, 26 percent fewer highway deaths were recorded in November 2003, compared with the same period a year earlier. The death toll on French highways, meanwhile, appears certain to have fallen below 6,000 in 2003–that’s 1,600 lives saved, according to the Interior Ministry, more than the number of people murdered annually. Not surprisingly, 82 percent of the French, according to a recent survey, approve of the flash system.
There are plenty of disgruntled chain-smoking cab drivers–who can no longer light up or speed in their cars and have been hit with gas taxes. But the sin-tax revolution is winning advocates, including politicians and economists who recognize the need to tap new sources of revenues without boosting unpopular income taxes. “People need strong limits to realize they must change,” says Chassaing. “Having to dish out cash also speaks to you.” In lean times, it seems, enlightenment can come in strange forms.
