Women smokers are to pay the price in France, where smoking is often associated with images of beautiful women, with female deaths from lung cancer set to rocket in coming years, a study showed recently.

Landing amid a government crackdown on the quintessentially French habit, the study by national health watchdog INVS predicted that 12,000 women will die from lung cancer each year from 2015, six times as many as in 1980.

Already between 1980 and 2000 the number of female deaths from lung cancer more than doubled, while male deaths from the disease - a bigger killer in France than any other cancer - increased by just under 50 per cent.

Distorted in part by a rising and ageing population, the predicted rise will underscore concern in France over the fact that young women are still taking up smoking in droves and often finding it harder than men to give up later on.

"Women have not been able to see through the message they are being sold by tobacco companies," said Sylviane Ratte.

"It's hard to get across the danger because for decades cigarettes have been associated with images of beautiful women."

A third of teenage girls and young women smoke in France, on a par with young men, a separate study showed. The number of women of all ages smoking half a packet of cigarettes per day has risen to 26 per cent from 10 per cent in 30 years.

Men still account for the vast majority of deaths from lung cancer in France - 22,600 men died from it in 2000 compared to 4,500 women, with 80 per cent of cases seen smoking-related.

Indeed the INVS study found French men have a higher death rate from all types of cancer than anywhere else in the European Union, largely due to a culture where wine flows freely and cafes are smoke-filled and littered with cigarette butts.

Yet while men are increasingly kicking the habit, doctors fear that smoking-induced lung cancer could become as much of a threat to women in the future as breast cancer is now.

"Historically, men started smoking much earlier than women. Men over 50 are stopping because they are seeing all around them the reality of how tobacco kills," said doctor Annie Sasco at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon.

"Conversely, for women, there is a delay. They are not yet at the peak of the epidemiological curve."

In a drive to crush the habit, the government has announced tax hikes that will raise the price of a packet of cigarettes to around 5.50 euros by mid-2004 from 3.90 euros in September.

Some schools have begun banning cigarettes, enraging adolescent students used to lax rules.

France's healthy diet and reputable health care still means the country boasts one of the highest life expectancies in the world - an average of 82.5 years for women and 75 years for men, according to national statistics agency INSEE.

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