Sure, lighting up a cigarette can make you feel like you’re in a chic French movie, but the days where you can actually smoke in France are very much numbered.
In an effort to raise ‘the first tobacco-free generation’, the country is set to enforce a huge smoking ban – and when you take a look at the stats, you can see why. According to France’s public health body, 12 million people were smoking on the daily in 2022 – that’s around 25 percent of 18 to 75-year-olds.
But France is something of a pioneer when it comes to smoking restrictions. It banned smoking in restaurants in 2008, and Britain, Spain and Italy all followed suit.
There are already thousands of tobacco-free areas across the country, but the government wants to extend the ban to include all beaches, public parks, forests and areas around schools – essentially, anywhere children will be present.
Lots of towns in France already have plenty of designated non-smoking areas. Nice was the first place to establish a cigarette-free beach way back in 2012, and Paris already has hundreds of smoke-free zones across the city – mostly public playgrounds, outside schools, creches (nurseries) and sports centres.
But what this new ban means is that smoke-free areas will become the responsibility of the central government, rather than local authorities. They’ve also announced an increase in the tax on cigarettes, and a ban on single-use e-cigarettes is in the works, too.
Outdoor terraces in cafés and bars will be exempt from the ban.
It’s thought that smoking causes a whopping 75,000 avoidable deaths in France each year, which is a whole lot of lives that could be saved. There are also concerns about the environmental impact of cigarette butts left on beaches: after plastic bottles, cigarettes are apparently the second biggest litter problem in coastal areas.
The ban will come into force on July 1.
Did you see that a sleeper train connecting two major European capitals could be returning?
Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Travel newsletter for all the latest travel news.
