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Au Revoir to the Smoke-Filled French Cafe
Tourists smoke on the outdoor terrace of a Paris restaurant. It is now illegal to light up inside bars and cafes in France, where cigarette smoking has long been part of the national persona.
(By Remy De La Mauviniere -- Associated Press)
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Breaking the law won't be cheap. Fines will run between the equivalent of about $100 and $660. Businesses caught allowing puffers can get hit with fines of more than $1,000.
On Wednesday, Bachelot-Narquin charged into the Wepler brasserie, a century-old Paris institution, to check out the status of the ban she is charged with enforcing.
Not a smoker was in sight.
"This is a new art of life supported by more than 80 percent of our citizens," she observed.
Polls have shown overwhelming public support for smoking bans in public places in the face of heightened concern over health and irritation with the smell.
Under pressure from the European Union, European countries slowly have shoved smokers out of more public spaces in recent years, though laws are enforced unevenly in many countries.
Ireland was the first to impose a comprehensive ban on puffing in public places, in March 2004. Norway, Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Lithuania followed with various prohibitions. Italy has outlawed smoking in the workplace, and Naples and Verona have barred smoking in parks.
Portugal also joined the anti-smoke world Wednesday. Turkey's parliament began debating a proposal to prohibit smoking in restaurants and other public areas.
An estimated 20 percent of the French population smokes, a figure that has declined in recent years, according to health officials.
Altadis, the manufacturer of the potent Gauloises and Gitanes cigarettes -- the smokes favored by the likes of actress Brigitte Bardot, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and generations of French laborers -- shut down its French factory two years ago and moved its assembly line for the distinctive blue Gauloises packs, with the trademark helmet of a Gallic warrior, to Spain, where labor is cheaper and smokers more plentiful.
Michelle Veillard, 60, who, with her husband, owns the 38 Eiffel Brasserie near the Eiffel Tower, supports France's ban. "We have lots of customers who smoke, but we haven't had any problems," she said. "If they want to smoke, they can go outside."
Veillard said that when she and her husband dine out, they always sit in a nonsmoking section, and they are happy to see smoking end in their own establishment.
"When my husband came home from work -- whew! His clothes stank!" Veillard said. "We prefer the ban."
