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France Considers Smoking Ban
Intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre, right, and Simone de Beauvoir have long been associated with smoke-filled French cafes.
(Associated Press)
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Bruno Szollosi, 48, an optician and Chinon regular, agreed. "I can't smoke at work, and need to have a space," he said. "If the police stop me, that would be absurd. It's intolerance."
In France, the business of selling cigarettes is reserved for the 29,000 buralistes , or tobacconists, who are licensed to sell tobacco in France's bar-tabacs . The tobacconists protested when cigarette taxes rose in 2003, but now some workers in the industry regard the proposed ban with gloomy inevitability.
"I'd have to change my profession," said Jessy Ramos, 22, as she served up coffee to a group of men smoking at a bar in central Paris. "I've worked only in bars my whole life. This law would be a catastrophe for my profession, and what would I do without my smoke breaks?"
The economic impact of smoking bans is unclear. In Italy, tobacco sales fell 20 percent following the ban on public smoking in January. In Ireland, restaurant revenues decreased around 7.5 percent in the first six months after its smoking ban began in March 2004 but have since begun to recover, according to studies by the Smoke Free Europe partnership. And researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found that a smoking ban in Massachusetts did not adversely affect business for restaurants and bars.
Nevertheless, Andre Daguen, head of the Trade Union for Hotel Industries, worries about the effect of the ban on his members.
"We'll gain a few nonsmokers, but we'll lose more," Daguen said. "I don't know what the future will hold. It comes down to a social principle. There's a tradition of smoking after a meal. Do we want to make more of a separation between people?"
Rene le Pope, head of the tobacconist union, said that many tobacco bars have already closed along French borders because of higher cigarettes taxes and cheaper smokes in Belgium and Spain. Without these bars, he said, French culture is threatened.
"A bar-tabac is the fabric that holds together some neighborhoods," Pope said.
