Rural gloom over French smoking ban

By Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Bannay, France

Chantal believes many of her clients will stay at home now

"It's a total and utter catastrophe. To be honest, I don't know if my business will be able to survive. C'est la mort."

Chantal Boucher's reaction to France's ban on smoking in bars and restaurants is unequivocal.

For the last 15 years she has been the owner of Le Sancerrois, a small café-bar beside the Loire canal in the village of Bannay in central France.

"Practically all of my customers are smokers. And the ones that aren't don't care. In country places like this, the bar is the only place people get together to talk and be convivial.

"But if they can't smoke, no-one is going to stay for more than just a few minutes.

"The whole point about bars like mine is that customers can relax. But if smoking is what they do to relax, then they won't come."

Lunchtime on the first day of the smoking ban and the place is deserted. It is not a good sign.

It is quite simply an attack on individual freedoms Eric Raynaud Local journalist

"In the city, maybe bars will attract a new clientele, but not out here in the country.

"And it's not worth ignoring the ban. I reckon the gendarmes will mean business, and a fine would ruin me," says Chantal.

"The problem today is that more and more people do things at home. They can't go out to drink because of the driving rules, so they drink at home. And now they can't go out to smoke, so they'll smoke at home.

"Society is so much more individualist than it used to be," she sighs.

Secret room

Eventually a pair of customers arrive. They would smoke, they say, but won't because they can't.

"Lifestyles are going to change. Now, if I light up here and have my lunchtime cigarette, I'll be a criminal," says Pierre Lesbats, an electrical engineer.

Regulars are invited to smoke in a private room upstairs

"It is quite simply an attack on individual freedoms," says local journalist Eric Raynaud.

"Even if I wasn't a smoker, I would consider it totally shameful," he adds.

The reaction of country folk to the ban may be hostile, but it is also resigned.

There is no sign that anyone intends to flout it.

Across the whole of France, some 70% of the population say they are in favour of the ban.

Times are changing, and even in the boondocks they know it.

After they go, Chantal lets me in on a secret. "Come and see what I have upstairs," she says.

Up a rickety flight blocked off by a curtain and a "private" sign, there is a room with four tables, a bed, posters, a television set and a games console.

It stinks of old cigarettes and there are several ash-trays.

"It's quite simple. I say to customers: 'I invite you to my private quarters.' They bring their drinks up here and they can smoke to their hearts' content.

"It's fine because it's on the private side of the house. All my regulars know about it," she says.

Something tells me the legality of this is not quite as clear-cut as Chantal says. But who knows?