Restaurateurs protest smoking ban
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French smokers abandon bars, clubs and restaurants for private parties
Private smoking parties have flourished since the public ban came into force
June 18, 2008
Adam Sage in Paris
Smokers in France are uniting to beat a ban on lighting up in public by organising open-house parties where they can puff on their Gauloises until the early hours.
The parties, held in flats and houses but also in clandestine clubs, often draw dozens of people for a drink, a chat, a dance and a cigarette. Some are paying, others are free, but all welcome the smokers who are deserting bars, bistrots and night clubs.
The movement has flourished since the introduction of a smoking ban in all public places on January 1, and has been compared to the speakeasies that secretly served alcohol during the Prohibition in the US in the 1920s. Internet networks have sprung up to link the partygoers and inform them of planned festivities.
One such network was created on Facebook by a 30-year-old Gauloises-smoking DJ who gives his name only as Shandor. “We set up the group because of the smoking ban,” he told The Times. “It was clear to us that it was going to be very complicated to go to a nightclub now. “A whole evening without a cigarette is very hard — especially when you’re drinking — so you’re better off at a party.”
The group — Pour le Grand Retour de la F?te en Appart’ en 2008 (“For the Great Comeback of Parties in Flats in 2008”) — originally included a few dozen people. Now it has 1,182 members. “It’s taken off so much that we’ve had to create a second, secret group,” said Shandor. “You can’t really have 1,000 people in a small flat.”
His network is free and informal, with members giving the address and date of their parties on the web. But others are more structured. Open Appart’, for instance, was set up by a graphic designer who holds monthly gatherings for well-connected Parisians in a 50 square metre flat in the centre of the city.
“I got an invitation on the internet from a friend of a friend,” said Antoinette, 60, a teacher. “It’s friendlier than caf?s, you can smoke and it’s not so expensive.” In another initiative, a chef in south Paris has set up an unofficial restaurant at his home where diners — attracted by word of mouth — can eat and “have a fag without having to go outside”, according to Le Parisien newspaper.
Vincent Gr?goire, artistic director at Nelly Rodi, the trend-forecasting agency, said that a dozen or so secret establishments had been formed in Paris since the smoking ban. “They’re halfway between public and private — where you only get in if you’re invited by an existing member,” he said.
“Sometimes you need a password and you have to pay a membership fee. This all existed before but it has really taken off after the smoking ban. People want to authorise for themselves everything that they’re not supposed to do.”
France introduced a ban on smoking in the workplace on February 1 last year and extended the measures to its 200,000 bars, caf?s and nightclubs 11 months later. They report a drop in custom of between 10 and 20 per cent as a result.
Sean Penn leads Cannes revolt against French smoking ban
May 14, 2008
CANNES, France (AFP) — US actor and director Sean Penn lit up and led a minor revolt at the Cannes film festival against France’s draconian new anti-smoking laws.
Penn, the head of the jury that will pick the best films, pulled out a cigarette and puffed on it at a press conference with fellow jury members, in defiance of laws in place since January that ban smoking in public enclosed spaces.
He only took a couple of drags before putting it aside and getting back to answering reporters’ questions.
But jury member Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian director clearly inspired by her colleague’s defiance, then asked to much laughter if anyone minded if she smoked “for medical reasons.”
She then lit a cigarette, with Penn and French actress Jeanne Balibar quickly following suit.
French Smokers are revolting!
Watch the BBC news report.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrmm3tLOSH8
Beating The Smoking Ban In France & Germany
January 28, 2008
When France introduced a nationwide ban on smoking in public places on 2 January most people took it in their stride.
Less that a month later the mood is different in Paris and other French cities. Displeasure is a polite term for the current attitude.
Smoke in caf?s has been inextricably linked (in tandem with coffee and gossip) since the first caf?, the Procope in the Paris left bank, opened in 1686.
Today, the pavements of the French capital resemble the biggest ashtray in the world. Cigarette butts litter the streets to a greater extent than dog excrement.
But there are others who are discontented, apart from smokers. (Despite or because of the interdiction, sales of tobacco heve remained more-or-less steady).
The problem is more profound. Many ‘caf?-tabac’ (bars that sell smokes) are increasingly at crisis point. In parts of rural France, caf?-tabac owners have taken to hanging banners in their windows demanding that they be allowed to continue selling tobacco – otherwise they risk losing their livelihoods.
In Paris this weekend a hardy group of dedicated smokers braved the cold to occupy the square in front of the Hotel de Ville. They declared the new law an assault on human rights and discriminatory. Owners of hookah bars, who risk closure too, joined the protest, arguing that premises should be allowed to declare themselves smoking or non-smoking and facilities provided according to that choice.
A vox pop and staw poll by this correspondent among caf? and restaurant owners in the capital and in Versailles has revealed that business is certainly depressed. More than a few establishments say they are facing closure.
To begin with, the non-smokers (a majority) were overjoyed with the prohibition. Now when they go to their favourite haunt they find there is almost nobody there.
Your best bet if you want to savour what is left of the old ambiance is: Le Nazir, 56, rue des Abbesses, Montmartre, Telephone: +33. (0) 1. 46. 06. 07. 17.
The management and customers flout the law with panache.
Across the Rhine, the smoking ban came into force in January too, but smokers in Berlin will be spared the “frozen fesses on the terrace” of their French cousins thanks to a six-month grace period for bars in this determinedly pro-smoking city.
Already, it is reported that the famously law-abiding Germans have taken a surprisingly relaxed attitude to the new leglislation. It hasn’t escaped German attention that the last person to try to ban smoking in public places was one Adolf Hitler.
However, this hasn’t stopped one fanatically anti-smoking group from trying to make Helmut Schmidt, Germany’s elder statesman, into the nation’s first smoking martyr.
Anti smoking activists lodged a complaint with the police after the former Chancellor was spotted lighting up in a theatre lobby hours after the ban came into force. Based on a section of German criminal law, some clowns are trying to have the 89-year old Schmidt charged with attempting to cause bodily harm.
A prosecutions spokesman says he expects the charges to be dropped, though one anti-smoking activist says he hopes the former Chancellor is fined for his misdemeanor.
Helmut Schmidt has been a lifelong smoker, regularly conducting television interviews through a haze of cigarette fumes. He and his wife Loki are regularly snapped at dinners and public events happily puffing away at their trademark cigarettes.
Loki told press this weekend that neither she nor her husband had any intention of stopping, adding that their doctors had advised them that the strain of attempting to quit could do more damage than continuing to smoke.
French cafe owner rebels against smoking ban
January 2, 2008
A French cafe owner put up protest art showing overflowing ashtrays and cigarette butts on Wednesday as he refused to apply a new smoking ban targeting restaurants and bars.
January 2, 2008
A French cafe owner put up protest art showing overflowing ashtrays and cigarette butts on Wednesday as he refused to apply a new smoking ban targeting restaurants and bars.
Christophe Cedat, owner of the Cafe 203 in Lyon, said the photo and poster-art exhibit in his smoky cafe would bring the debate surrounding the new ban into the “artistic domain” which he described as “neutral ground.”
The trendy cafe’s entrance displayed a banner that carried the warning: “Cultural and social experimental zone: you are exposing yourself to the threat of second-hand smoke.”
A smoking ban went into force on Tuesday in cafes, restaurants and nightclubs, 11 months after the measure hit workplaces and other public areas.
After a one-day reprieve to smokers over the New Year festivities, police and public health officials began enforcing the ban on Wednesday.
Smokers who light up in cafes face fines of between 68 euros (100 dollars) to 450 euros while business owners can incur penalties of up to 750 euros for violations.
Cedrat said he would allow smokers to light up in his cafe between noon and 2 pm and plans to cover the cost of fines by selling small decorated ashtrays.
Rural gloom over French smoking ban
January 2, 2008
By Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Bannay, France
Chantal believes many of her clients will stay at home now
“It’s a total and utter catastrophe. To be honest, I don’t know if my business will be able to survive. C’est la mort.”
January 2, 2008
By Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Bannay, France
Chantal believes many of her clients will stay at home now
“It’s a total and utter catastrophe. To be honest, I don’t know if my business will be able to survive. C’est la mort.”
Chantal Boucher’s reaction to France’s ban on smoking in bars and restaurants is unequivocal.
For the last 15 years she has been the owner of Le Sancerrois, a small café-bar beside the Loire canal in the village of Bannay in central France.
“Practically all of my customers are smokers. And the ones that aren’t don’t care. In country places like this, the bar is the only place people get together to talk and be convivial.
“But if they can’t smoke, no-one is going to stay for more than just a few minutes.
“The whole point about bars like mine is that customers can relax. But if smoking is what they do to relax, then they won’t come.”
Lunchtime on the first day of the smoking ban and the place is deserted. It is not a good sign.
“In the city, maybe bars will attract a new clientele, but not out here in the country.
“And it’s not worth ignoring the ban. I reckon the gendarmes will mean business, and a fine would ruin me,” says Chantal.
“The problem today is that more and more people do things at home. They can’t go out to drink because of the driving rules, so they drink at home. And now they can’t go out to smoke, so they’ll smoke at home.
“Society is so much more individualist than it used to be,” she sighs.
Eventually a pair of customers arrive. They would smoke, they say, but won’t because they can’t.
“Lifestyles are going to change. Now, if I light up here and have my lunchtime cigarette, I’ll be a criminal,” says Pierre Lesbats, an electrical engineer.
Regulars are invited to smoke in a private room upstairs
“It is quite simply an attack on individual freedoms,” says local journalist Eric Raynaud.
“Even if I wasn’t a smoker, I would consider it totally shameful,” he adds.
The reaction of country folk to the ban may be hostile, but it is also resigned.
There is no sign that anyone intends to flout it.
Across the whole of France, some 70% of the population say they are in favour of the ban.
Times are changing, and even in the boondocks they know it.
After they go, Chantal lets me in on a secret. “Come and see what I have upstairs,” she says.
Up a rickety flight blocked off by a curtain and a “private” sign, there is a room with four tables, a bed, posters, a television set and a games console.
It stinks of old cigarettes and there are several ash-trays.
“It’s quite simple. I say to customers: ‘I invite you to my private quarters.’ They bring their drinks up here and they can smoke to their hearts’ content.
“It’s fine because it’s on the private side of the house. All my regulars know about it,” she says.
Something tells me the legality of this is not quite as clear-cut as Chantal says. But who knows?
Left Bank fumes in a smoke-free zone
Alex Duval Smith
Sunday December 30, 2007
The Observer
Without it, film noir would have lacked its noir. Existentialists might have got bored working out the absurd, and husky-voiced Simone Signoret would have lacked huskiness. Yet on Tuesday France is due to become the latest country to ban smoking in its 280,000 cafes, bars and restaurants.
Whereas last year’s ban on puffing in workplaces met with little resistance, intellectuals – who spend little time in offices and do much of their thinking in cafes – have come out in force against this one. It was Jean-Paul Sartre, after all, who declared that ‘smoking is the symbolic equivalent of destructively appropriating the whole world’.
Left Bank waitress-to-the-thinkers Irene, who for 12 years has emptied ashtrays at Cafe de Flore, once one of Sartre’s stamping grounds, says her customers are extremely upset. ‘We have a non-smoking section on the first floor but it’s almost always empty, because it has no atmosphere.
‘We are taking away the ashtrays on Tuesday and we’ll see how it goes. I’m not a smoker myself but I’m against this law because cafes, unlike offices, are places you go to by choice. Soon everything will be banned and people will go off to the toilets to sniff their lines of cocaine,’ she said.
Cafe de Flore, along with its neighbours Brasserie Lipp and Les 2 Magots, owe their place in history – and in tourist guidebooks – to former smoking patrons, such as Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Pungent Gauloises and Gitanes were their brand at a time when the rest of the population was still enchanted with the perceived sophistication of ‘les blondes’ – toasted brands, such as Lucky Strike and Camel, brought over by the American liberators.
A smoker’s brand was regarded as a shortcut to his or her personality: Rebellious and scruffy singer Serge Gainsbourg went for non-tipped Gauloises (slogan: ‘Liberte Toujours’), while sophisticated actress Jeanne Moreau opted for American filter tips or at least used a cigarette holder.
At a time when opting for a French brand was patriotic – the state-owned Seita company bought its tobacco from French farmers – writer-turned Culture Minister Andre Malraux chainsmoked tipped Gitanes. On the whole, Gauloises had more of a left-wing image.
Psychoanalyst Philippe Grimbert said smoking was suited to the French because they are a people in constant rebellion against authority. ‘To smoke is to say “I am alive but I am playing with death”. People would not smoke if it were not dangerous. Smokers believe cigarettes are vital to their existence so they will always adapt to bans or price increases.’
Grimbert’s analysis of the French as inveterate rebels may serve to explain why the country’sefforts to legislate against smoking have always failed. Advertising by tobacco companies was curtailed as far back as 1976, but flagrant breaches were tolerated. It took France until 1987 – more than 20 years after Britain – to produce a study showing that smoking was responsible for 50,000 deaths a year. After a further six years, the Loi Evin introduced the concept of smoke-free areas in restaurants and offices, but the legislation was never enforced.
Sociologist Henri-Pierre Jeudy said that the latest smoking ban fitted in with a trend for social conditioning which France has until now resisted. ‘Whisteblowing – of which we have painful Second World War memories – is about inculcating the idea that being in the majority is right. It is a way of offensively legitimising collective hatred.
‘But moralism in the name of collective survival is illusory and is no more effective than slaughtering all chickens to stop avian flu.’
He cites the example of an exhibition at the National Library marking 100 years since the birth of Sartre. ‘On the poster they airbrushed out his cigarette. But everyone knew the picture and could see the gap between his fingers. They had taken away part of Sartre – all in the name of the current woolly notion of what is good.’
Some of the Parisian cafes and bars, meanwhile, are regarding the health ministry pamphlet ‘Sortons du brouillard’ (‘Let’s get out of the fog’) as providing a creative challenge. ‘The ban does not apply to outdoor terraces which are partially open,’ said Mickael Serrain, manager at Cafe Bastille, who faces a potential €750 ban if he gets it all wrong.
Sunday December 30, 2007
The Observer
Without it, film noir would have lacked its noir. Existentialists might have got bored working out the absurd, and husky-voiced Simone Signoret would have lacked huskiness. Yet on Tuesday France is due to become the latest country to ban smoking in its 280,000 cafes, bars and restaurants.
Whereas last year’s ban on puffing in workplaces met with little resistance, intellectuals – who spend little time in offices and do much of their thinking in cafes – have come out in force against this one. It was Jean-Paul Sartre, after all, who declared that ‘smoking is the symbolic equivalent of destructively appropriating the whole world’.
Left Bank waitress-to-the-thinkers Irene, who for 12 years has emptied ashtrays at Cafe de Flore, once one of Sartre’s stamping grounds, says her customers are extremely upset. ‘We have a non-smoking section on the first floor but it’s almost always empty, because it has no atmosphere.
‘We are taking away the ashtrays on Tuesday and we’ll see how it goes. I’m not a smoker myself but I’m against this law because cafes, unlike offices, are places you go to by choice. Soon everything will be banned and people will go off to the toilets to sniff their lines of cocaine,’ she said.
Cafe de Flore, along with its neighbours Brasserie Lipp and Les 2 Magots, owe their place in history – and in tourist guidebooks – to former smoking patrons, such as Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Pungent Gauloises and Gitanes were their brand at a time when the rest of the population was still enchanted with the perceived sophistication of ‘les blondes’ – toasted brands, such as Lucky Strike and Camel, brought over by the American liberators.
A smoker’s brand was regarded as a shortcut to his or her personality: Rebellious and scruffy singer Serge Gainsbourg went for non-tipped Gauloises (slogan: ‘Liberte Toujours’), while sophisticated actress Jeanne Moreau opted for American filter tips or at least used a cigarette holder.
At a time when opting for a French brand was patriotic – the state-owned Seita company bought its tobacco from French farmers – writer-turned Culture Minister Andre Malraux chainsmoked tipped Gitanes. On the whole, Gauloises had more of a left-wing image.
Psychoanalyst Philippe Grimbert said smoking was suited to the French because they are a people in constant rebellion against authority. ‘To smoke is to say “I am alive but I am playing with death”. People would not smoke if it were not dangerous. Smokers believe cigarettes are vital to their existence so they will always adapt to bans or price increases.’
Grimbert’s analysis of the French as inveterate rebels may serve to explain why the country’sefforts to legislate against smoking have always failed. Advertising by tobacco companies was curtailed as far back as 1976, but flagrant breaches were tolerated. It took France until 1987 – more than 20 years after Britain – to produce a study showing that smoking was responsible for 50,000 deaths a year. After a further six years, the Loi Evin introduced the concept of smoke-free areas in restaurants and offices, but the legislation was never enforced.
Sociologist Henri-Pierre Jeudy said that the latest smoking ban fitted in with a trend for social conditioning which France has until now resisted. ‘Whisteblowing – of which we have painful Second World War memories – is about inculcating the idea that being in the majority is right. It is a way of offensively legitimising collective hatred.
‘But moralism in the name of collective survival is illusory and is no more effective than slaughtering all chickens to stop avian flu.’
He cites the example of an exhibition at the National Library marking 100 years since the birth of Sartre. ‘On the poster they airbrushed out his cigarette. But everyone knew the picture and could see the gap between his fingers. They had taken away part of Sartre – all in the name of the current woolly notion of what is good.’
Some of the Parisian cafes and bars, meanwhile, are regarding the health ministry pamphlet ‘Sortons du brouillard’ (‘Let’s get out of the fog’) as providing a creative challenge. ‘The ban does not apply to outdoor terraces which are partially open,’ said Mickael Serrain, manager at Cafe Bastille, who faces a potential €750 ban if he gets it all wrong.
Customers smoke cigarettes at Cafe 203 in Lyon, France, where the owner has refused to comply with a new smoking ban. Instead, Christophe Cedat has put up protest art featuring overflowing ashtrays and cigarette butts. Cedat said the exhibit in his smoky cafe will bring the debate surrounding the new ban on smoking in bars and restaurants into the “artistic domain,” which he described as “neutral ground.”
See photo from U.S. News
See photo from U.S. News
Paris Isn’t Burning
By CORINNE MAIER
December 30, 2007
PARIS
“GOD smokes Cuban cigars,” Catherine Deneuve sang more than 25 years ago in a song that’s still famous here. The cigarette is part of our international image, alongside the baguette and the slenderness of French women.
The reality is different, though. True, the French smoke a bit more than Americans, but we smoke somewhat less than some of our European neighbors, like the Austrians, the Greeks and the Dutch.
What is more notable is that the French have lagged in the West’s antismoking fight. America is at war against cigarettes. Ireland and Norway banished them in public spaces in 2004. They were soon followed by Italy, Spain, Sweden and Britain.
But things are changing here. Last year, the government decided to act. Prohibiting smoking in public places shows resolve to the voters, after all, a majority of whom favor banning cigarettes altogether.
Banishing tobacco is easier than solving the problems of the slums or reducing unemployment among young people. In October 2006, six months before this year’s presidential elections, Prime Minister Dominque de Villepin issued a decree that barred smoking in public places (government offices, schools, hospitals and the like), starting in February 2007. Cafes, restaurants and nightclubs received a reprieve until Jan. 2, 2008. So, beginning on Wednesday, smoking will now be allowed only in sealed rooms that meet strict standards.
Sixteen years ago, France was the pioneer of the West’s antitobacco fight with its Evin law, which required no-smoking areas in restaurants and cafes. But this law has been routinely ignored, in the way the French usually do with laws that displease them. Thus, France is, for a few more days, one of the last countries in Europe where you can smoke in public while you eat and drink.
Will the new prohibition be respected? Is this the end of the traditional morning cigarette savored with coffee at the bistro? “We’ll see,” some say, ready to bet this ban will have no more effect than the first.
The state, after all, profits from a laissez-faire attitude toward smoking. France has imposed high taxes on tobacco: 80 percent of the sale price of a cigarette pack (the average is five euros, or about $7.35) goes into the state treasury.
These taxes bring in more than 10 billion euros a year. Isn’t it shocking to earn money by taxing what is properly called a drug? The government responds by saying that the money subsidizes the social cost of tobacco, a plague that causes about 65,000 deaths a year in France. Lobbying by the multinational companies that dominate the French market (the biggest is Altadis, a French-Spanish company, followed by Philip Morris and British American Tobacco) also has something to do with the French tolerance of tobacco.
But others fear that smoking in public will become increasingly difficult. Although a prohibition on smoking in bars and restaurants will be harder to enforce, the ban in hospitals, schools and other places that began in February has been widely obeyed. Our Italian neighbors are also very punctilious about respecting their antismoking legislation, which went into effect in January 2005.
When he goes to Italy, the French writer Michel Houellebecq, an inveterate smoker, is obliged to meet with journalists in his hotel room. Cigarette in hand, he is now persona non grata in the lobby, at the bar, in the restaurant.
For simple economic reasons, the French smoker could rapidly become an endangered species. French cigarettes are among the most expensive in Europe, their price rising ceaselessly since 1991.
But some will always resist the antismoking campaign and manage to buy cheaper cigarettes. The black market is flourishing, and cartons of cigarettes bought on the cheap across the border circulate widely. On my trips to other countries, I have begun the custom of bringing back a carton for one or another of my smoking friends.
“Another blow to the enemy!” is the ritual phrase that greets this gift. In France, smokers tend to consider themselves as members of the resistance.
Resisting the dictatorship of health and the dictates of hygienic standards: vive la libert? of smoking! And everyone knows that in France, nobody has made jokes about liberty since the Revolution. Shall we start depicting Marianne, the emblem of the Republic, with a cigarette in her mouth?
Corinne Maier is the author of “Bonjour Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Pay.” This article was translated by The Times from the French.
By CORINNE MAIER
December 30, 2007
PARIS
“GOD smokes Cuban cigars,” Catherine Deneuve sang more than 25 years ago in a song that’s still famous here. The cigarette is part of our international image, alongside the baguette and the slenderness of French women.
The reality is different, though. True, the French smoke a bit more than Americans, but we smoke somewhat less than some of our European neighbors, like the Austrians, the Greeks and the Dutch.
What is more notable is that the French have lagged in the West’s antismoking fight. America is at war against cigarettes. Ireland and Norway banished them in public spaces in 2004. They were soon followed by Italy, Spain, Sweden and Britain.
But things are changing here. Last year, the government decided to act. Prohibiting smoking in public places shows resolve to the voters, after all, a majority of whom favor banning cigarettes altogether.
Banishing tobacco is easier than solving the problems of the slums or reducing unemployment among young people. In October 2006, six months before this year’s presidential elections, Prime Minister Dominque de Villepin issued a decree that barred smoking in public places (government offices, schools, hospitals and the like), starting in February 2007. Cafes, restaurants and nightclubs received a reprieve until Jan. 2, 2008. So, beginning on Wednesday, smoking will now be allowed only in sealed rooms that meet strict standards.
Sixteen years ago, France was the pioneer of the West’s antitobacco fight with its Evin law, which required no-smoking areas in restaurants and cafes. But this law has been routinely ignored, in the way the French usually do with laws that displease them. Thus, France is, for a few more days, one of the last countries in Europe where you can smoke in public while you eat and drink.
Will the new prohibition be respected? Is this the end of the traditional morning cigarette savored with coffee at the bistro? “We’ll see,” some say, ready to bet this ban will have no more effect than the first.
The state, after all, profits from a laissez-faire attitude toward smoking. France has imposed high taxes on tobacco: 80 percent of the sale price of a cigarette pack (the average is five euros, or about $7.35) goes into the state treasury.
These taxes bring in more than 10 billion euros a year. Isn’t it shocking to earn money by taxing what is properly called a drug? The government responds by saying that the money subsidizes the social cost of tobacco, a plague that causes about 65,000 deaths a year in France. Lobbying by the multinational companies that dominate the French market (the biggest is Altadis, a French-Spanish company, followed by Philip Morris and British American Tobacco) also has something to do with the French tolerance of tobacco.
But others fear that smoking in public will become increasingly difficult. Although a prohibition on smoking in bars and restaurants will be harder to enforce, the ban in hospitals, schools and other places that began in February has been widely obeyed. Our Italian neighbors are also very punctilious about respecting their antismoking legislation, which went into effect in January 2005.
When he goes to Italy, the French writer Michel Houellebecq, an inveterate smoker, is obliged to meet with journalists in his hotel room. Cigarette in hand, he is now persona non grata in the lobby, at the bar, in the restaurant.
For simple economic reasons, the French smoker could rapidly become an endangered species. French cigarettes are among the most expensive in Europe, their price rising ceaselessly since 1991.
But some will always resist the antismoking campaign and manage to buy cheaper cigarettes. The black market is flourishing, and cartons of cigarettes bought on the cheap across the border circulate widely. On my trips to other countries, I have begun the custom of bringing back a carton for one or another of my smoking friends.
“Another blow to the enemy!” is the ritual phrase that greets this gift. In France, smokers tend to consider themselves as members of the resistance.
Resisting the dictatorship of health and the dictates of hygienic standards: vive la libert? of smoking! And everyone knows that in France, nobody has made jokes about liberty since the Revolution. Shall we start depicting Marianne, the emblem of the Republic, with a cigarette in her mouth?
Corinne Maier is the author of “Bonjour Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Pay.” This article was translated by The Times from the French.
Tobacco sellers protest smoking ban in French cafes
12/02/2007
PARIS (AP) – Some 10,000 people, mainly tobacco sellers, marched through the city last week to protest a smoking ban in French cafes as of Jan. 1.
The demonstrators want a modification to the decree banning their Gitanes, Gauloises and other brands of tobacco in all cafes, restaurants and nightclubs at the start of 2008 so that smoking rooms with ventilation can be set up in the establishments.
Some 10,000 protesters wearing Day-Glo vests marched from the Montparnasse train station to the National Assembly, the lower chamber of parliament, to press lawmakers into adding flexibility to the anti-smoking measure.
The demonstration was one of a handful of protests this month – including crippling rail strikes – of reforms by President Nicolas Sarkozy aimed at modernizing France. The smoking ban was adopted before Sarkozy took office in May, however.
The tobacconists, joined by members of cigar clubs and teahouse owners, insist that changes they are seeking would respect the spirit of the decree.
Tobacconists fear they will lose clients unable to have a cigarette with their coffee and will lose money on other products typically sold in “cafes tabacs” – cafes where cigarettes can be bought.
Those opposed to the ban also fear for the survival of cafes in rural areas, often the only community gathering spot for miles around.
French authorities have been trying to wean the nation of cigarettes in increments for years. A Feb. 1 ban on lighting up in workplaces, schools, airports, hospitals and other “closed and covered” public places like train stations forced France’s smokers outdoors – but not out of cafes.
French Smokers March on Cigarette Ban
November 21, 2007
PARIS (AP) — Some 10,000 people, mainly tobacco sellers, marched through Paris on Wednesday to protest a smoking ban in French cafes as of Jan. 1.
The demonstrators want a modification to the decree banning their Gitanes, Gauloises and other brands of tobacco in all cafes, restaurants and nightclubs at the start of 2008 so that smoking rooms with ventilation can be set up in the establishments.
Some 10,000 protesters wearing Day-Glo vests marched from the Montparnasse train station to the National Assembly, the lower chamber of parliament, to press lawmakers into adding flexibility to the anti-smoking measure.
The demonstration was one of a handful of protests this month — including crippling rail strikes — of reforms by President Nicolas Sarkozy aimed at modernizing France. The smoking ban was adopted before Sarkozy took office in May, however.
The tobacconists, joined by members of cigar clubs and teahouse owners, insist that changes they are seeking would respect the spirit of the decree.
Rene Le Pape, president of the Confederation of Tobacco Sellers, came away from a Tuesday meeting with Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot disappointed and angry, saying there was a ”total blockage.”
Tobacconists fear they will lose clients unable to have a cigarette with their coffee and will lose money on other products typically sold in ”cafes tabacs” — cafes where cigarettes can be bought.
Those opposed to the ban also fear for the survival of cafes in rural areas, often the only community gathering spot for miles around.
French authorities have been trying to wean the nation off cigarettes in increments for years. A Feb. 1 ban on lighting up in workplaces, schools, airports, hospitals and other ”closed and covered” public places like train stations forced France’s smokers outdoors — but not out of cafes.
01.08.2007
On Monday the 6th France will raise the Tobacco Taxes of 6%.
This will be about 30 cts per pack. A pack of Marlboro, the most sold trade in France would pass from 5 Euro to 5,30 Euro.
The confederation of tobacco traders expressed at once their “intense worries”, because of the increase of grey and black market that will result out of the increase of taxes. It is too soon, and too much said Ren? Le Pape, who is the President of the confederation of Tobacco traders. This new risk of balance loss of our network will be added to the application of the smoking ban in tobacco-bars from 1st of january 2008.
[n France official tobacco traders are all Bars at the same time: these are 31.000: they have absolutely no chance to survive to a smoking ban.
20minutes/AFP
On Monday the 6th France will raise the Tobacco Taxes of 6%.
This will be about 30 cts per pack. A pack of Marlboro, the most sold trade in France would pass from 5 Euro to 5,30 Euro.
The confederation of tobacco traders expressed at once their “intense worries”, because of the increase of grey and black market that will result out of the increase of taxes. It is too soon, and too much said Ren? Le Pape, who is the President of the confederation of Tobacco traders. This new risk of balance loss of our network will be added to the application of the smoking ban in tobacco-bars from 1st of january 2008.
[n France official tobacco traders are all Bars at the same time: these are 31.000: they have absolutely no chance to survive to a smoking ban.
20minutes/AFP
Tabac: hausse des prix de 6% en France ? partir de lundi
Les prix du tabac vont augmenter en France de 6% ? partir du lundi 6 ao?t, ce qui repr?sente une hausse d’environ 30 centimes d’euros pour un paquet de cigarettes, a-t-on appris mercredi de source proche du dossier.
Les prix du tabac vont augmenter en France de 6% ? partir du lundi 6 ao?t, ce qui repr?sente une hausse d’environ 30 centimes d’euros pour un paquet de cigarettes, a confirm? mercredi soir le minist?re du Budget.
[…] Le prix d’un paquet de Marlboro, marque la plus vendue en France, devrait ainsi passer lundi de 5 ? 5,30 euros.
La Conf?d?ration des buralistes fran?ais a aussit?t exprim? “ses vives pr?occupations”, redoutant une augmentation “des achats transfrontaliers et de la contrebande”. “C’est trop t?t et trop fort”, a r?agi Ren? Le ape, pr?sident de la Conf?d?ration, cit? dans un communiqu?.”Ce nouveau risque de d?stabilisation de notre r?seau de proximit? s’ajoute aux autres menaces qui s’annoncent avec l’application prochaine du d?cret d’interdiction de fumer dans les bars-tabacs”, ajoute-t-il. Lire 20Minutes.fr avec AFP
Les prix du tabac vont augmenter en France de 6% ? partir du lundi 6 ao?t, ce qui repr?sente une hausse d’environ 30 centimes d’euros pour un paquet de cigarettes, a-t-on appris mercredi de source proche du dossier.
Les prix du tabac vont augmenter en France de 6% ? partir du lundi 6 ao?t, ce qui repr?sente une hausse d’environ 30 centimes d’euros pour un paquet de cigarettes, a confirm? mercredi soir le minist?re du Budget.
[…] Le prix d’un paquet de Marlboro, marque la plus vendue en France, devrait ainsi passer lundi de 5 ? 5,30 euros.
La Conf?d?ration des buralistes fran?ais a aussit?t exprim? “ses vives pr?occupations”, redoutant une augmentation “des achats transfrontaliers et de la contrebande”. “C’est trop t?t et trop fort”, a r?agi Ren? Le ape, pr?sident de la Conf?d?ration, cit? dans un communiqu?.”Ce nouveau risque de d?stabilisation de notre r?seau de proximit? s’ajoute aux autres menaces qui s’annoncent avec l’application prochaine du d?cret d’interdiction de fumer dans les bars-tabacs”, ajoute-t-il. Lire 20Minutes.fr avec AFP
On the 19th of June, France’s new president Sarkozy had a meeting with a lot of journalists. He received a cigar from them, and he smoked it.
This was confirmed on TV on the 19th of June : FR2, and M6 was confirmed the next day.
This seems to prove that that he wants to hold his promises to the “bars-tobaccos.” These are bars who sell tobacco. His promise is to exempt them from a total smoking ban. Also, the prime minister Fillon is against the discrimination of smokers. The state secretary Santini is never seen without his cigars and he supported the smokers organization “Fumeurs en col?re” in 2004. (We have that letter).
So we are starting a petition so that the President does not think that the world ist made of antis.
Francois Bayrou, a strong candidate (Democrat) also promised the Spanish solution. So, it does not look that bad in France.
Cheers,
Christine
Christine
There is lots of news in German on the front page.
?sterreichische Raucherbewegung: Aktion, Information, Vernetzung
www.raucherbewegung.eu
?sterreichische Raucherbewegung: Aktion, Information, Vernetzung
www.raucherbewegung.eu
France enforces ban on smoking in public spots
3 Feb, 2007
The unthinkable has happened. France, where lighting up has always been considered an integral part of its culture, has banned smoking in public spaces from February 1.
If the French intellectual is up in arms, worse is in store. From next year, even the smoke-filled bars and cafes of Paris will be history.
France is merely following what the rest of the world, including India, has already begun to enforce. Public spaces are gradually being declared no-smoking zones. This is the way it should be.
The harmful effects of smoking on a person’s health are too well known to bear repetition. The link between smoking and cancer and respiratory diseases has been conclusively proved.
But smoking bans in public spots are not just about a smoker’s health. An individual is, of course, free to ruin his health by smoking if he so desires. But the freedom to smoke cannot be at the cost of other people’s health and safety.
The obvious advantage of banning smoking in public spaces is to do away with passive smoking. There are, however, more long-term benefits associated with a smoking ban.
When smokers develop different sorts of ailments they put pressure on the health system. Even if these patients pay for their treatment, it still keeps doctors and beds occupied when they could have been much better used.
An even more pernicious effect is the impact on insurance rates, which are likely to be hiked because of smoking-related diseases.
That way the general population gets penalised for a handful of people who insist on smoking. There are some who would argue that the campaign against smoking diverts from more serious issues plaguing the world.
It might well be true that malnutrition or illiteracy are much more grave evils than smoking. That does not, however, mean that there shouldn’t be an all-out effort to stamp out smoking in public places.
Those who are still foolish enough to persist in smoking can do so in the privacy of their homes.
Smokers divided on smoking ban that means an image change for France
January 31, 2007
Marie-Laure Combes
Marie-Laure Combes
PARIS: Manuel Bussac predicts that he will smoke more and work less when France’s ban on smoking in public spaces kicks in Thursday. His firefighter friend, Bernard Geoffrey, says the ban will help him quit his pack-a-day habit.
Their opposing views reflect the divide over the latest push to wean France off cigarettes, a change that may alter the image of a country defined in part by its smoky cafes.
France’s 15 million smokers will be banned from lighting up in workplaces, schools, airports, hospitals and other “closed and covered” public places from Thursday. More than 175,000 agents are to enforce the ban, handing out fines of €68 (US$88) for smokers and €135 (US$174) for employers who look the other way.
In a year, the ban will extend to cafes and restaurants — sure to be the moment of truth for a certain idea of France, where writers like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre are remembered with cigarettes dangling from their mouths.
“A world is collapsing,” writer Philippe Delerm wrote in a front-page ode to the cigarette in Le Monde newspaper, referring to the alluring image of the chain-smoking intellectual. “Those were good times. But nobody thought about the collateral damage.”
Despite staggered anti-smoking initiatives over more than a decade, French smokers have, so far, held sway as officialdom turned a blind eye to rule-bending.
Nearly a quarter of French people are smokers. Yet a day before the “no smoking” signs go up, there was no sign of panic in the streets.
A scattered check of pharmacies suggested that, so far, smokers are calm, with no pre-ban rush for smokers’ aids like nicotine patches. However, two companies that make ventilated smoking rooms for offices say they are gearing up for a rush in orders.
Bussac, 25, who works in real estate and smokes 15 cigarettes a day, is angry because the ban leaves him with no choice.
“It’s the obligation that bothers me,” he said, sitting at a sidewalk cafe with a pack of Marlboros planted squarely on the table.
Bussac said he has done his workplace smoking on his office balcony, allowing him to carry on with business on the telephone. Starting Thursday, he will have to smoke in the street.
At five minutes per cigarette, “I think I’ll lose an hour of work,” he said.
But will the ban incite him to cut down or stop smoking?
“On the contrary, I’ll smoke more now,” he said.
Some people clearly need to have the choice made for them, and Geoffrey, a 29-year-old firefighter from the southwest city of Nimes, is among them.
Smoking has been permitted in his fire station, but that changes on Thursday.
“If you have to go outside to smoke, you smoke less,” Geoffrey said. “I’m going to stop in February, using my willpower. That’s all.”
For those lacking sufficient inner strength to break the habit, the government will help by reimbursing up to €50 (US$65) per person per year for stop-smoking aids. It will also allow bosses to invest in strictly regulated special smoking rooms inside the workplace.
Gaelle Parlouer, a 28-year-old who describes herself as a heavy smoker, is happy about the ban because it will help her to cut down. But she refuses to quit.
“I will never stop smoking,” she said. “We have just one life so we should profit from the little pleasures.”
French Smoking Ban Begins Thursday
Jan. 31, 2007
PARIS — France’s health minister expressed optimism that the public will respect a new ban on smoking in offices and other public areas set to begin Thursday _ but acknowledged there could be violators.
“We have the means to hand out penalties as early as tomorrow (Thursday) if indeed there are holdouts, but I am resolutely optimistic,” Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said on RTL radio Wednesday.
The ban, announced in November, will affect offices and other public buildings, but bars, cafes, restaurants, hotels and casinos are exempt from applying it until 2008.
Pro-smoking groups complain that the ban tramples on individual freedoms, and say enforcement will be tricky. Health Ministry agents _ not police _ are charged with enforcing the ban.
“This is a striking evolution in society,” Bertrand said, adding that many companies and establishments have already started respecting the ban.
France is following other European countries like Italy, Spain and Ireland that have imposed bans or partial bans on smoking in recent years as part of government campaigns to improve health.
Cutting Back on Smokers’ Libert?
January 29, 2007
John Ward Anderson
John Ward Anderson
PARIS — About a dozen history and political science students huddled against the blustery cold outside the main entrance to the Sorbonne university, the bastion of Left Bank intellectualism. The topic, as they puffed away: France’s new law banning smoking in public places such as schools and offices, and an even broader prohibition, set for next year, covering bars, restaurants and cafes.
“I’m in favor of the ban on smoking because when I see people smoking in bars and restaurants next to nonsmokers and children, it’s a shame,” said Louise Regent, 20, lighting up. Recounting a visit to Ireland, which recently adopted tough anti-smoking laws, she said, “It felt very good to go to a bar, and when you got back home, you didn’t stink of cigarettes.”
“I am against the ban, because it’s a question of liberty,” said cigarette-waving Guillaume Dejesse, 20, adding that he always respects the wishes of nonsmokers. “In France, we say one’s liberty ends where someone else’s begins, as if there is a border between freedoms, and where yours start, mine stop.”
With a tentative first step planned for Thursday, France joins a growing movement in Europe, where governments are increasingly bowing to citizens’ demands for an end to smoking in public places. The drive is partly in response to medical reports showing that more than 500,000 people a year die from smoking-related diseases in the 27-nation European U nion, and more than a million in Europe as a whole.
Belgium banned smoking in restaurants starting Jan. 1. Denmark will ban smoking in workplaces beginning April 1. England will ban smoking in offices, pubs and restaurants July 1 and will raise the legal age for buying cigarettes from 16 to 18 in October. Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Switzerland and Norway have also passed tough anti-smoking regulations in recent years.
“It’s a tremendous success story for public health in Europe,” said Peter Boyle, director of the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon.
Boyle said Europe’s anti-smoking advance began in 1985, when leaders launched an aggressive campaign to reduce cancer rates through educational programs and improved prevention and detection. By 2000, he said, cancer death rates had fallen 9.8 percent.
Since new laws went into effect in Spain last January, for example, smoking among adults has dropped 2 percent, cigarette sales have shrunk 6 percent and nicotine levels in the workplace have fallen 83 percent, according to the country’s National Committee for the Prevention of Smoking. The group called the laws “the best advance in public health in Spain in the last two decades.”
But it has not been all success for anti-smoking advocates. In Germany, where about 27 percent of people smoke, the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Dec. 2 that it intended to ban smoking in restaurants, schools and other public buildings — though not in bars and pubs — then backed away from the proposal 10 days later. Officials said they belatedly discovered that Germany’s constitution reserved enactment of smoking laws to state governments, but political analysts and public health advocates accused the federal government of caving in to the country’s powerful tobacco lobby.
An attempt last year in France to establish tougher smoking laws suffered a similar fate when the government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, faced with plummeting public support and widespread student and labor strikes, postponed enacting a smoking ban, even though polls showed it had wide public support.
According to a survey published last January by the European Commission, 91 percent of French respondents totally or somewhat favored banning smoking in the workplace, and 78 percent favored a ban in restaurants. Even among smokers, 75 percent favored banning smoking in workplaces and 55 percent in restaurants.
The French government plans to implement its new law in two phases, banning smoking in offices, schools, shopping malls and other public places beginning Feb. 1, and delaying the ban in restaurants, bars and cafes until Jan. 1. For many in France, granting a year’s reprieve for the some of the smokiest places is a worrying sign that the government might once again back down.
That view is based on experience. In 1991, France adopted the harshest anti-smoking laws in Europe, demanding, for instance, that restaurants create separate smoking and nonsmoking areas. But the law was never enforced, leading to the widespread belief that the new laws will be ignored or changed to avoid a complete ban in restaurants, bars and cafes.
Francis Attrazic, vice president of the hotel, bar and restaurant association representing about 80,000 French businesses, said that without such a compromise, the group’s members expect to lose about 20 percent of their customers.
Shortly after opening Restaurant Christophe a year ago in Paris’s Latin Quarter, chef and owner Christophe Philippe, 27, decided to make it a nonsmoking restaurant and hung a sign in the dining area explaining, “Smoking severely harms the scent of my dishes.” He lost many customers, he said, but as a former smoker who had struggled to quit because of the smoke in restaurants where he worked, Philippe is committed to keeping a smoke-free environment.
“I’m in favor of the total ban, of course, but I doubt it’s ever going to be implemented in France,” he said. “The other restaurants have one year to adapt to the new law, but I’m sure they’ll find a way to change it.”
Outside the Sorbonne, Louis Jesu, 19, said he would continue smoking in public places regardless of the law. “It’s a tradition in France. Everyone goes to bars and smokes. And everyone will defy this law.”
“Some will smoke only to defy the law,” said Michael Barbut, 20, laughing and puffing away.
Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said at a news conference last week that as many as 175,000 police officers, health and other inspectors would enforce the new law, fining violators about $98 and the owners of businesses where infractions occur about $195 for each person caught defying the ban. The French government will reimburse people who quit about $65 annually for gum, patches and other anti-smoking aids, he said.
French restaurateurs protest smoking ban
Nov. 6, 2006
PARIS — Tobacco vendors and restaurateurs in some 70 cities around France protested Monday against the country’s smoking ban, which is to take effect next year.
The demonstrators were demanding that tobacco vendors be allowed to choose whether or not to go nonsmoking. They also demanded a five-year delay in applying the ban, which is to start in February in public places including offices and schools and in 2008 will apply to restaurants, dance clubs and some bars.
“We ask that each vendor be given the right to choose whether his establishment will be smoking or nonsmoking,” said Gerard Bohelay, who heads the tobacco vendors’ association for the Paris region.
In the French capital, roughly 100 protesters held banners reading “A boss’ choice: To smoke or not to smoke” and “Five year delay.” They brandished their voter registration cards in a sign to lawmakers that their choices in next year’s presidential and legislative elections will hinge on the ban.
Philippe de Villiers, a far-right politician who attended the Paris demonstration, pledged to support vendors who refuse to heed what he called an “iniquitous law.”
Smokers who infringe the ban will face $95 fines, while owners of buildings where the violations take place will be subject to twice that.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced the ban last month, saying it was to be ordered “by decree,” a maneuver that allows the government to avert a potentially explosive parliamentary debate ahead of elections next year.
Read More: France Page 2
