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Beating The Smoking Ban In France & Germany
When France introduced a nationwide ban on smoking in public places on 2 January most people took it in their stride.
Less that a month later the mood is different in Paris and other French cities. Displeasure is a polite term for the current attitude.
Smoke in cafés has been inextricably linked (in tandem with coffee and gossip) since the first café, the Procope in the Paris left bank, opened in 1686.
Today, the pavements of the French capital resemble the biggest ashtray in the world. Cigarette butts litter the streets to a greater extent than dog excrement.
But there are others who are discontented, apart from smokers. (Despite or because of the interdiction, sales of tobacco heve remained more-or-less steady).
The problem is more profound. Many 'café-tabac' (bars that sell smokes) are increasingly at crisis point. In parts of rural France, café-tabac owners have taken to hanging banners in their windows demanding that they be allowed to continue selling tobacco - otherwise they risk losing their livelihoods.
In Paris this weekend a hardy group of dedicated smokers braved the cold to occupy the square in front of the Hotel de Ville. They declared the new law an assault on human rights and discriminatory. Owners of hookah bars, who risk closure too, joined the protest, arguing that premises should be allowed to declare themselves smoking or non-smoking and facilities provided according to that choice.
A vox pop and staw poll by this correspondent among café and restaurant owners in the capital and in Versailles has revealed that business is certainly depressed. More than a few establishments say they are facing closure.
To begin with, the non-smokers (a majority) were overjoyed with the prohibition. Now when they go to their favourite haunt they find there is almost nobody there.
Your best bet if you want to savour what is left of the old ambiance is: Le Nazir, 56, rue des Abbesses, Montmartre, Telephone: +33. (0) 1. 46. 06. 07. 17.
The management and customers flout the law with panache.
Across the Rhine, the smoking ban came into force in January too, but smokers in Berlin will be spared the "frozen fesses on the terrace" of their French cousins thanks to a six-month grace period for bars in this determinedly pro-smoking city.
Already, it is reported that the famously law-abiding Germans have taken a surprisingly relaxed attitude to the new leglislation. It hasn't escaped German attention that the last person to try to ban smoking in public places was one Adolf Hitler.
However, this hasn't stopped one fanatically anti-smoking group from trying to make Helmut Schmidt, Germany's elder statesman, into the nation's first smoking martyr.
Anti smoking activists lodged a complaint with the police after the former Chancellor was spotted lighting up in a theatre lobby hours after the ban came into force. Based on a section of German criminal law, some clowns are trying to have the 89-year old Schmidt charged with attempting to cause bodily harm.
A prosecutions spokesman says he expects the charges to be dropped, though one anti-smoking activist says he hopes the former Chancellor is fined for his misdemeanor.
Helmut Schmidt has been a lifelong smoker, regularly conducting television interviews through a haze of cigarette fumes. He and his wife Loki are regularly snapped at dinners and public events happily puffing away at their trademark cigarettes.
Loki told press this weekend that neither she nor her husband had any intention of stopping, adding that their doctors had advised them that the strain of attempting to quit could do more damage than continuing to smoke.
