PARIS: Brigitte Bardot drew languid puffs from her cigar as she lounged outdoors on a Saint-Tropez seaside. Another professional, Jean-Paul Belmondo, dragged smoke down the Champs-Elysees while yelling at his rebellious lips, capturing a decade’s anxious rebellion. Cigarettes were previously just cigarettes in France; they were flirtatious, flirtatious, and rebellions wrapped in rolling papers. If Bardot and Belmondo’s iconic film scenes were to be repeated in real life starting on July 1, they would be subject to fines of up to 135 euros ( USD 153 ). After glorifying marijuana for countless years, France is gearing up for its most drastic smoking restrictions to date. Smoking may be prohibited in almost all outdoor public spaces where children can gather, including beaches, parks, gardens, playgrounds, sports facilities, college entrances, and bus stops, according to Health Minister Catherine Vautrin’s announcement. Vautrin told European media that” tobacco may dissipate where there are children.” The right to smoking” stops where family’s right to breathe fresh air begins.” If Vautrin’s rules reflects public health interests, it also indicates a more profound social change. The new estimate feels like a silent French revolution in a nation whose connection with marijuana is renownedly difficult because smoking has defined personality, fashion, and cinema for so long. More than twice as many French movies from 2015 to 2019 featured tobacco views, according to France’s League Against Cancer, as reported by the country’s League against cancers. The average length of on-screen tobacco for each European film was roughly three minutes, equivalent to six 30-second television commercials. Especially important has been Cinéma. Belmondo’s rebel smoking in Jean-Luc Godard’s” Breathless” became the anthem for young rebellion everywhere. Through” And God Created Woman,” Bardot’s cigar smoking echoed, expressing unbridled passion. However, this glamorization has effects. die from ound 5, 0 0 pe pl die fro tobacco-related illnesses each year, according to France’s public health authorities. Even though smoking rates have dropped recently, which is a historic low for the practice, which persists, particularly among young people and the urban chic, is less than 25 % of French adults who smoke regularly. The connection between tobacco and France has long been contradictory. Prior to 2000, years after major US companies began phase-out smokes on all of its flights, Air France did not ban it on all of its airlines. Yet at 35, 000 feet, the pause suggested a nation that was slower to break historical romance with cigarettes. Responses to the smoking ban ranged from rational understanding to cheerful defiance as they marched through the fashionable streets of Le Marais, Paris’s most fashionable neighborhood. It’s about time, I said. Companies Laurent, a 34-year-old fashion customer sipping espresso on a crowded eatery terrace, said,” I don’t want my children growing up thinking smoking is romantic.” Bardot certainly made tobacco appear beautiful. However, Bardot was unconcerned by the recent instructions about lung cancer. Vintage vendor Luc Baudry, 53, saw the ban as an assault on something fundamentally European at a local store. Smoking has always been a part of American society. What will we have left after removing tobacco? ” Kale Smoothies” he laughed aloud. She said her voice was greatly etched by generations of Gauloises, and 72-year-old Jeanne Levy chuckled throatily across from him. She confessed,” I smoked my second cigarette while watching Jeanne Moreau,” her eyes twinkling behind retro sunglasses. It was lived-in, beautiful, and voice-smoky, according to her. Who wouldn’t want that message? However, Jeanne Moreau’s sour, nicotine-scraped voice transformed tobacco into poetry, which is immortalized in works of literature like Francois Truffaut’s” Jules et Jim.” Smoking gave rise to philosophical glitz, making it impossible for European smokers to stop for decades. The new law in France reflects wider European changes. Major smoking bans have been implemented in open spaces in Spain, Sweden, and Britain. In 2019, Sweden outlawed smoking in outdoor eatery slopes, vehicle starts, and schoolyards. Spain extended its prohibitions on cafe slopes, which are still free in France, at least for the time being. Thomas Bouchard, a literature student in Paris ‘ Place des Vosges, held an electronic cigar that is still free from the new ban and shrugged. He said,” Maybe vaping’s our compromise,” exhaling gently. ” A little less beautiful, maybe. but also less wrinkly.
