The biggest problem with Macron's new smoking ban: the French

Times

2 days ago

With modest fanfare, one of the world's most tobacco-addicted nations introduced one of the world's boldest smoking bans this month.
In France it is now illegal to smoke on beaches, in parks, at bus stops, near schools and at the entrances to libraries and sports centres. President Macron's stated goal is to produce a tobacco-free generation by 2032 and he is doing everything he can to stamp out public smoking in any place where children might be present.
There is, however, one factor that his government appears to have overlooked: the French.
This is a country with a historic disregard for authority where a third of working-age adults still smoke, just under a quarter of them every day. Casual smoking is creeping up and more French women smoke now than 50 years ago. In western Europe, cigarettes have become an increasingly rare sight, but between the Channel and the Mediterranean smoking remains a fact of life.
At least five French mayors went on record within days of the ban to say it was unenforceable.
An afternoon at a packed beach in the south of France last week showed why. Smokers dotted the Plage des Catalans in Marseille, while greater numbers simply avoided the ban by smoking on its the fringes: from rocks, café terraces opposite the beach and a stretch of concrete beside the loos.
Everyone was aware of the new rule, the first of its kind in Europe. No one, including the police, seemed to know exactly what it meant.
A loudspeaker boomed out a clear instruction, in French and then English: 'For those of you who want to smoke, you have to go on the concrete side of the beach.'
Confusion reigned. When retired brasserie owner Léa Abzar, 67, sat smoking on the concrete with her pet chihuahua, police arrived to tell her she had to go somewhere else.
'They told me that even up there you're not allowed,' she said, pointing to the promenade and street above the beach. 'Which means these days we're allowed to smoke at home, and that's it.' (The gendarmes seemed to be misinformed about this: there is nothing in the new law that bans smoking on pavements or highways.)
'It won't decrease anything at all,' she added, of the new restrictions on smoking. 'I can guarantee you. Even diseases don't make it decrease. I find it a shame that these people who lead us waste time making these kinds of laws when there are much more important things to deal with.'
Naïm Bessah, a lifeguard, told me that in 20 minutes on patrol he had stopped 'three or four' people smoking on the actual beach. Smoking had already been banned on Marseille's beaches anyway, he said, though people 'didn't respect it'.
He added: 'Since the new ban, if we see it, we stop people. But it's not our job.' His heart really didn't seem to be in it. Two minutes later I spotted him near the men's loos with his yellow lifeguard's T-shirt off, cigarette in hand.
Under the new law fines for infractions rise from €135 (£117) to €750 for repeat offenders, but I saw no fines at all being imposed by police on the beach. The closest shave was when a policeman dashed off towards a woman on the sand fiddling with a suspicious-looking object: a suspected cannabis joint. The woman claimed it was a cigarette and that she wasn't going to smoke it there. The police moved on.
Aurore Faust, 46, a carer from Marseille, stood with a cigarette just off the sand near steps to the road. She has been smoking for 20 years, is now on four or five a day and has no plans to quit. 'We will not stop, never,' she said — although she could see the merits of the beach ban because it will protect children.
Campaigners say the restrictions need to go further. François Torpart, from the National Committee Against Smoking, said it had pushed for café terraces to be included, a move that surveys show a majority of French people would actually support.
Torpart said in time the current 'first step' would make a difference. He cited the ban on smoking in restaurants and public transport in 2007, a year when Britain did the same. 'There were some of the same reservations, the same hesitations, such as how to enforce the regulations, [people saying] we cannot have the police intervene everywhere, etc,' he said. 'But the fact is that it worked well.'
In France it proved less effective than in other countries, though. Britain is currently bringing in some of the strictest anti-smoking rules in the world, in the form of Sir Keir Starmer's Tobacco and Vapes Bill now going through the Lords. It will ban children born since January 1, 2009, from ever buying cigarettes. It also includes a ban on smoking outside schools, hospitals and playgrounds, similar to the French law, although beaches are not included.
As it stands, however, France has all the same restrictions as Britain, but almost three times the number of smokers.
France is now joining the ranks of the few countries to have nationwide bans on smoking in certain outdoor public spaces. Mexico is one (beaches and parks), Singapore another (parks, bus stops, playgrounds and other locations). Finland bans smoking in areas primarily used by minors, such as daycare facilities and schools. Many Australian states and Canadian provinces have bans at beaches (Bondi Beach is smoke-free). In Spain and Italy, western Europe's next most smoker-full countries, lots of local councils have banned smoking on beaches. Some French ones already had, too.
Since the new ban came into force, it has been criticised by several local elected mayors, who in France have powers over policing. Dominique Cap, mayor of Plougastel-Daoulas, a peninsula community in Brittany, called the ban an 'absurd and very Parisian' decision.
In Marseille too, it looked that way, at least for now.
'If people want to smoke, they smoke,' said Remi Cozzolino from behind the counter of his tobacconist-newsagent facing the sea in front of Plage des Catalans.
Had the ban affected business? 'Not at all.'