Saved terraces. The decree that establishes the prohibition of smoking in public parks and gardens, on beaches, under shelters, near schools, scenarios, swimming pools and libraries, starting on Sunday, June 29, does not refer to the open terraces of coffees and restaurants.
In November 2023, the then Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, said he wanted to “assume the challenge of a tobacco free generation since 2032”, while presenting the National Tobacco (PNLT) 2023-2027 program.
It was then a matter of prohibiting cigarettes in several public spaces, such as beaches, public parks, forests and external surroundings of certain public places for collective use. But already, the terraces were not mentioned.
No “urine the French”
Last February, the Minister of Health and access to care, Yannick Neuder, said it was not “for the prohibition of tobacco on the terraces, at the South Radio Station.
“It is part of the discussions. Acceptable measures are needed, compatible with all,” he added on this issue, before stating: “Let’s stop bothering the French,” defending the smokers.
These comments were quickly sentenced by the National Committee against Smoking (CNCT), believing that they were “unworthy of a cardiologist and, a fortiori, of a health minister”, while the European Commission recommended at the end of 2024 in the Member States to extend the prohibition of smoking in particular the terraces of the cafes.
“Grant in places with many children”
A few months later, the current Minister of Health, Catherine Vautrin announced at the end of May, in Ouse France at the end of May, the extension of the prohibition of tobacco on July 1, finally entered into force on June 29. Once again, he confirms that this prohibition “does not affect (no) to coffee terraces.”
“We focus on places where there are many children,” he justifies.
“We are not there to give moral lessons, but to prevention,” added the minister, assuming Yannick Neuder’s argument.
A call to associations to “go further”
However, this choice to save the terraces is lamented by several associations to fight tobacco. The prohibition of “denforming” the use of tobacco in public space “is in the right direction, but remains insufficient,” France-Presse (AFP) Yves Yves Martinet, president of the National Committee against Smoking (CNCT), told the agency.
“The minister is based on the protection of children” but the latter “also goes to the terraces,” said this pulmonologist.
A speech that the president of Alliance already had against tobacco, Loïc Josseran, at the end of May of RMC, was already held after the ads made by Catherine Vautrin. The legislator could “go a little further, especially going to the terraces” of coffee, which are “real aquariums of smoke and smoke,” he argued.
“We face a true tobacco manufacturer that passes through coffee and restorers,” he said, and said that “many of these restorers, bars are also tobaconists” and that the government “probably did not want to hire a confrontation” with this profession.
Especially because the terraces are considered a place where passive smoking is particularly important by public health France. “Passive smoking, if it is more toxic in a closed environment, is also particularly toxic in an open environment, especially in covered places (terrace, awnings, etc.),” recalls the organism in a brochure dedicated to the subject.
French largely favorable to this prohibition
The tomorrow Association does not workers also regret that the prohibition of smoking does not refer to the terraces, and also denounces the “pressure of catering unions.”
“Many professionals fear that the prohibition of the terrace runs from customers,” the organization deplores, ensuring that it is just an idea received.
In fact, the latest annual annual “tobacco” annual survey, directed by Opinionway for the tomorrow Association that did not smoke, reports that 84% of respondents “want to be exposed to smoking tobacco in places like coffees and restaurant terraces”, evoking a “discomfort” or “discomfort.”
Therefore, the terraces are placed in the upper part of the most cited places in which the French no longer wish to be exposed to tobacco smoke, in front of the tails, the beaches or the leisure areas, while the places where tobacco is authorized has remained restricted for 50 years and that the prohibition has been in force in certain foreign countries as elaborate for years.
The hotel and the restoration opposite to the prohibition
For Franck Delvau, president of the UMIH (Hotel Trade and Industries Union) of île-de-France, which prohibits tobacco on the terrace would not be the solution. According to him, that would only move the problem because “people on the smoking terrace next to the establishments.”
The “smokers and non -smokers can coexist” on the terrace, the “last places of coexistence and freedom”, also maintains Franck Touset, general delegate of the Hôtelleries and restorations of France (GHR).
In addition, the CNCT regrets the absence in the text of electronic cigarettes, whose aromas are used to “have young people”, but attacked by the decree. However, “for a measure to be effective, it must be clear: there is no consumption of products that contain tobacco or nicotine in public,” Yves Martinet insists.
In France, smoking 75,000 dead per year ago, while passive tobacco smoke exposure is 3,000 to 5,000 dead every year, according to official figures. Less than a quarter of adults aged 18 to 75 declared smoking daily in 2023, observes the OFDT.
Source: BFM TV
