Plain tobacco packaging support from health associations. As in other countries, there was fierce protest from the tobacco industry and tobacco retailers associations. The Health Minister also seemed lukewarm in his support, preferring to see the effect of newly-introduced health warnings. Under the next legislature however, the new Socialist Health Minister, Marisol Touraine, said she would fight especially at the European level for "neutral packaging". As in Australia, the tobacco industry countered that generic packaging would be easy to counterfeit, which would increase illegal cigarette sales. The EU directive eventually contained no explicit measures regarding plain packaging. In reaction, the French government announced
Plain tobacco packaging A few days later, the Federal Council said it was opposed to this, saying such a measure "goes too far". In September 2011, "Bloomberg" reported that the Turkish government was working on plain packaging regulations. An Istanbul-based newspaper, "Milliyet", reported that under the proposal all branding elements would disappear and cigarettes would come in "numbered black boxes" excluding any imagery other than health warnings. In November 2016, Health Minister Recep Akdağ stated that Turkey will "introduce plain packaging where the brand of cigarettes will almost be invisible and sellers will be obliged to store the cigarettes in closed cases instead