That was the jokey question our Nice restaurant man put to our table the other day. As he’d told us, the smoking ban has had a depressive effect on custom. “Having a cigarette or a cigar was really part of the pleasure of relaxed meal,” he recalled. “Now we have quite a few people who don’t bother with coffee and don’t mention digestifs.” In general, everyone seems to agree, the prohibition of smoking in public places has been accepted remarkably easily. “We’re had very little aggro here, I mean with people lighting up defiantly. Just one or two cases at the start.” With trains, buses and trams the story’s the same. The occasional yob will have a puff but it’s rare. On the other hand, inveterate tobacco addicts are still at it in private: Sarko, it’s said, still enjoys his favourite Cuban cigars (Chirac kept a pack of Marlboros by his bed); Zinedine Zidane was sadly caught savouring a Gauloise just at the time he was fronting a no-smoking campaign for kids.

What effect has the ban had? Probably, along with price hikes (Chirac’s Marlboros, as pointed out in “Listen Up”, will cost €5.83 from January 1st), it’s persuaded quite a few to limit or give up their smoking. The number of confessed smokers is now down to 17 million; at the moment though France still has the EU’s highest percentage of smokers under the age of 25. Some have looked for other ways of getting their nicotine fix such as chewing tobacco (ugh!) or snuff; others are chewing gum. Bosses are complaining about time lost with smoking breaks on the street (look out for all those butts and you’ll get the point). Some workers say their addicted colleagues, deprived of a puff over lunch, are very irritable around the office. There’s also been a wave of nostalgia for the smoke-filled years. One man we talked to sneered after learning that a famous picture of Jean-Paul Sartre was doctored to remove a cigarette from between his fingers. “He lived to be 75,” he told us. “But lots of others didn’t,” we reminded him.

From Riviera Reporter Issue 130: Dec 2008/Jan 2009

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