Tourists looking to light up on the beaches of the French Riviera this summer face being slapped with a fine after nationwide ban on smoking in most outdoor areas comes into force.
France is outlawing smoking on all beaches and other public outdoor spaces, and introducing a hefty penalty for those who do not comply with the new rules when they take effect within weeks.
“Tobacco must disappear where there are children,” French health minister Catherine Vautrin told French newspaper Ouest-France on Thursday.
"From July 1, beaches, public parks and gardens, school grounds, bus shelters, and sports facilities will be smoke-free throughout France."
Those who don’t comply with the ban face a fine of €135 (£113.60), Ms Vautrin said, adding that the freedom to smoke "ends where children's right to breathe clean air begins."
The ban does not include cafe or bar terraces, and will not apply to e-cigarettes, but Ms Vautrin said she was not ruling out making any changes in the future.
One in four French people aged over 15 (25.3 per cent) smoked on a daily basis as of 2021, according to the most recently available figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The President of the Alliance Against Tobacco Loic Josseran welcomed the ban, telling Le Parisien he believed the new rules would help “gradually remove cigarettes from our environment”.
"We urgently need to change the image of tobacco, which costs French society €156 billion a year and is a health and environmental disaster,” he said.
Lung specialist Frederic Le Guillou told Le Parisien that the ban on smoking in public spaces was about encouraging people to stop smoking.
“The idea is not to make smokers feel guilty, because smoking is a real addiction, but the fact is that the more constraints we put on them, the more it encourages them to stop,” he said.
The national ban follows bans already enacted by some local authorities around France.
Smoking was banned in Saint-Malo in Brittany in 2015, it was banned in 2018 in Ouistreham in Calvados, Le Figaro reports.
The mayor of Saint-Malo, Gilles Lurton, told the publication officials had never had to issue many fines.
“We advocate education above all,” he said.
On the Cote d’Azur in the south-east of France, about 10 towns have also already banned smoking on certain beaches, including Menton, Saint-Laurent-du-Var , Villefranche-sur-Mer, and Cannes.
Cannes Lord Mayor David Lisnard told Le Figaro: "We made this choice almost ten years ago for reasons of hygiene, the environment and also public health.”
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