Paris (France) (AFP) – The Minister of Commerce, Serge Papin, indicated Wednesday on LCI that a new tax on sweet products was “part of the things that are on the table” of the government in the 2027 budget presented Thursday.

Published on: 09/30/2026 - 09:51

“I am not for taxes”, argued Serge Papin, but there is a health “issue”, because “there is too much obesity, too much diabetes”, he again affirmed.

According to Les Echos, this tax, which will be included in the Social Security financing bill for 2027 that the government will submit to Parliament, will target certain processed products above a certain still unknown sugar threshold.

The government expects to generate 200 million euros in revenue through this tax, again according to Les Echos, which corresponds to the amount estimated by Horizons and EPR deputies in an amendment on the same subject tabled last fall.

Part of the agri-food sector is already up in arms against this hypothesis, like the president of the National Association of Food Industries (Ania) Jean-François Loiseau who feared on RMC on Wednesday that in the end, "it is the consumers who will pay".

“I didn’t say that we necessarily had to go through taxes,” defended Serge Papin.

But "today, a 9-year-old kid has eaten as much sugar (...) as his grandfather who lived a whole life", argued the Minister of Commerce, SMEs and purchasing power.

An incentive food tax already exists, today limited to sweetened drinks containing added sugars.

This tax brought in around 800 million euros in 2025, according to a report from the Social Affairs Committee published in June 2026.

In a report published in 2025 aimed at informing budgetary debates, Health Insurance recommended “the establishment of an excise tax on excessively fatty, salty, sweet and ultra-processed products”.

The government will present on Thursday the details of its draft budget for 2027, which is set to face a difficult parliamentary journey given the government minority in the National Assembly.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has already indicated that this draft budget aims to reduce the public deficit to 5% of GDP.

© 2026 AFP

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