Spotted this in The Guardian:
But yesterday, on the Left Bank where Sartre once lit Simone de Beauvoir's fags with impunity, France's traditional "café-clope" - morning coffee and cigarette - was now only possible by braving freezing temperatures or pavement heaters that singe your hair off.
"This is imbecilic," said Jean-Yves Oussedik, a historian, puffing his pipe outside the literary cafe Les Deux Magots. "A complete ban is ridiculous." Outside Café de Flore, once the smoke-filled retreat of existentialists, advertising student Sonia Bourezma, 27, wondered if all this non-smoking stuff wasn't just a touch too American. "But in reality people will do what they're told."
Banning smoking might be American, but judging by the public's positive response - studies before the ban showed 70% support - it will be just one more US trend embraced by French society. Even among the diehard smokers in tiny tabacs, no one wants to risk a fine.
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