Up in Smoke

On January 1st, I awoke in our SF hotel to see the headline splattered across the front page of USA Today (oh please, it was a standard hotel-room paper delivery – like we’d ever pay money for that rag): French Smoking Ban in Effect (or something like that). Oh, that’s right! Nearly a week in California and we’d completely readjusted to cigarette-free restaurants, cafés, and bars without looking back. What a relief to know that upon our return to France, we could enjoy more of the same.

Who would have thought it could ever happen? Banning smoking in public places in France?!?! That’s like abolishing pasta in Italy or the siesta in Spain. Smoking is so ingrained in the lifestyle here that even people who don’t “truly” smoke have the more-than-just-occasional post-meal cigarette, hikers have been known to light up and puff away while trudging up steep inclines, and more traffic accidents have been caused by cyclists trying to light up mid-ride than by drunk drivers (OK, I made that last one up, but it’s probably not far from the truth). True, sitting in a Parisian bar for over an hour could cause even regular smokers to feel headachy and get teary-eyed because of the perpetual haze permeating the space. But per the French mentality, smoking in public wasn’t a privilege – it was a right! A right that has now been stripped away. Sure, it’s the wave of the future (or of a decade ago), but change is sometimes slow in France and protecting one’s rights is paramount.

And so, we have the inevitable fallout. In the aforementioned USA Today article, a 19-year-old French student was quoted as being staunchly against the law because it was “ridiculous! How can you drink a coffee without having a cigarette? That is unthinkable.” (That quote works even better if you say it aloud in an atrocious French accent.)

One of my more mature students is less extreme in her resistance to the law, but she is less than pleased. For her, smoking is a social activity and she doesn’t like to do it alone. She feels inconvenienced to have to invite friends up to her apartment to join her for a cigarette on her spacious balcony overlooking a 270-degree view of the city.

Some citizens are siding with the government - the traitors! We came home one day last week to find a sign posted in our tiny (approx. 3’x3’) elevator (see the "before" photo). The translation: please do not smoke in the elevator, thank you. Wow. We may not use the elevator every day, but in our four months living here we’ve never noticed it reeking of stale smoke. Anyway, someone wasn’t happy with this fascist propaganda, because the sign didn’t last a week. One night we went out for dinner and had to take a photo of what we thought was a preciously hilarious sign. We returned from dinner to discover the most heinous, politically-motivated act of vandalism I’ve seen on this side of the pond since I landed in London on the night the Germans beat the Brits in the World Cup semis (’96) and saw drunken buffoons carousing around the streets smashing BMW windows (yes, I was very afraid). Anyhow, see the "after" photo. Note to selves: anti-smoking ideology is obviously not popular in our building.

However, not everyone is clawing away at no-smoking signs. (Which, by the way, are tiny stickers posted in the corners of restaurants that blithely offer a phone number – which one must of course pay for per minute – to help smokers learn how to quit. Aw, how cute, all tucked away back there where prying eyes can’t find ‘em.) Even if they’re not slapping on the Patch just yet, there are Frenchmen and women who are more open to the benefits of the law. A pregnant acquaintance who is still puffing away daily told me she’s glad there’s no more smoking in public because it’s healthier for the baby. This, without a shred of irony.