The European Commission has published a plan to “extend smoke-free environments”, essentially taking the indoor smoking bans that already exist and and expanding them to cover areas including the outdoor spaces or bars and restaurants, bus stops, outdoor areas of workplaces, public playgrounds and zoos. 

Although France does have a ban on smoking in indoor public spaces, this does not extend to the country’s famous café terraces on which smokers are regularly found.

In fact, when the smoking ban came in in 2007, many café owners altered their terraces to make them more cosy for smokers in winter, adding extra temporary walls and heaters. 

The initial reaction from the hospitality industry in France to the proposals was not welcoming. Franck Delvau from the Umih union which represents the hospitality sector told BFMTV: “Let’s close the tobacconists to cut smoking! Why are we attacking restaurateurs and brasseries?” He also warned about possible redundancies as a consequence of the proposals.

So what is the Commission’s plan?

The plan calls on EU countries to;

• extend the coverage of smoke-free policies to key outdoor areas, including outdoor recreational areas for children such as public playgrounds, amusement parks and swimming pools, as well as public buildings and transport stops and stations.
• extend smoke-free policies to emerging products such as heated tobacco products and electronic cigarettes, which increasingly reach very young users. The World Health Organisation recently highlighted the negative effects of exposure to second-hand emissions from these products, including significant respiratory and cardiovascular problems.

This is the latest part of the Beating Cancer Plan, which sets the goal of creating a ‘Tobacco-Free Generation’ by 2040, where less than 5 percent of the population uses tobacco.

Will it be legally binding?

No. The important thing about these regulations is that they are not legally binding, France will be free to ignore the plan – and café owners will likely be pressuring the government to make sure they do exactly that.

However France does already have quite a few restrictions on smoking – in addition to the indoor smoking ban that has been in place since 2008, more recent years have seen the extension of bans to cover beaches and to create ‘exclusion zones’ outside schools where smoking is prohibited.

France has also gradually increased the price of cigarettes over several years in order to discourage smokers. The average price of a packet is currently €10.50, that will rise to €12 in 2025 and €13 in 2026 – that’s compared to just €3.20 a pack in 2000.

Many local authorities also have rules in place that ban smoking in parks, recreation grounds and wooded areas (although this last is usually to counter the risk of wildfires rather than as a health measure).

How many French people smoke?

According to a 2023 study by Santé publique France, a quarter of French adults smoke on a daily basis. The percentage of smokers fell steadily from 30 percent in 2016 but has plateaued at 25 percent ever since the Covid pandemic, with experts suggesting that smoking was seen as a way to cope with the stressful period.

Men remain significantly more likely to smoke than women, with 27.4 percent of men aged 18 to 75 saying they smoked daily, compared to 21.7 percent of women.

France’s smoking rates remain higher than the EU average (18.4 percent) but lower than Europe’s heaviest smokers Bulgaria (28.2 percent), Greece (27.2 percent) and Hungary (25.8 percent).

READ MORE: MAP: Where in France do people smoke the most?

Within France, people in the northern Hauts-de-France region are the most likely to smoke, with Parisians in the Île-de-France region the least likely to smoke.