In the past, France has been evaluated quite highly, but this has partly been because French women's health has for a long time been better than men's, but recently the women also have started smoking more. Due to the raise in French women smoking, France's overall health rankings will fall now; Women have earned the right to die from smoking. The number of young smokers has increased also.
It is the end of a long myth France had enjoyed, what had been called a paradox that the French ate rich foods, drank lots of wine, smoked like chimneys, engaged in very little vigorous exercise, and yet enjoyed a greater collective health than most countries in the world. No longer: France's poor position in terms of cancer deaths can be explained largely by the high levels of deaths from lung cancer, throat and mouth cancers and liver cancer; this type of cancer is closely linked to two risk factors: excessive alcohol consumption and smoking.