Starting this Sunday, smoking will be banned on the beach and in parks, but not on terraces: what you need to know to avoid a fine

Promised for the end of 2023 and announced at the end of May by Catherine Vautrin, this measure, enacted in a decree on Saturday in the Official Journal coming into force on Sunday, applies in particular to beaches "during the bathing season" , to public parks and gardens, to "areas allocated to waiting passengers" in transport.

It also concerns the immediate surroundings of libraries, sports facilities (stadiums, swimming pools, etc.) , schools or establishments welcoming minors, where it will be forbidden to smoke a cigarette "within a perimeter of at least 10 meters," the Ministry of Health specified in a press release.

A new text must, "in the coming days" , formally establish this perimeter and the new signage - a pictogram - of these new " tobacco-free spaces" , according to the ministry.

E-cigarettes are not affected by this ban, which does not apply to cafe and restaurant terraces.

Any violation " may be punished by a fourth-class fine, i.e. a fixed fine of 135 euros, which can go up to 750 euros," specifies the ministry, which had nevertheless promised a period of "education" at the end of May.

"Where there are children, tobacco must disappear. A park, a beach, a school—these are places for playing, learning, and breathing. Not for smoking," emphasized Catherine Vautrin, Minister of Health, and Yannick Neuder, Minister Delegate for Health, seeing this as "one more step toward a tobacco-free generation."

Cohabitation on the terrace

The expansion of smoke-free spaces was one of the measures planned by the National Tobacco Control Program (PNLT) 2023-2027, with the ambition of "meeting the challenge of a generation free of tobacco by 2032."

Eager to take action, 1,600 voluntary municipalities have already extended the ban on smoking in public places to parks , beaches, ski slopes, school areas, etc., i.e. 7,000 smoke-free areas, in local experiments supported by the League Against Cancer.

Much anticipated by anti-smoking organizations, the ban, which aims to "denormalize" tobacco use in public spaces , "is a step in the right direction, but remains insufficient," Yves Martinet, president of the National Committee Against Smoking (CNCT), told AFP.

"The minister is relying on child protection," but children " also go out onto terraces ," the pulmonologist emphasizes.

Franck Delvau, president of the Umih (Union of Hotel Trades and Industries) of Ile-de-France, is satisfied that terraces are not affected: such a ban would, according to him, only shift the problem because " people on terraces would go and smoke next to the establishments."

"Smokers and non-smokers can coexist" on terraces, the "last places of conviviality and freedom," agrees Franck Trouet, general delegate of the French Hotel and Restaurant Association (GHR).

"Hooking the young"

In France, passive exposure to tobacco smoke causes 3,000 to 5,000 deaths per year, according to official figures.

The CNCT regrets the absence in the text of electronic cigarettes, whose flavors are used to "hook young people." However , "for a measure to be effective, it must be clear: no consumption of products containing tobacco or nicotine in public," Yves Martinet insists.

Nearly nine out of ten French people (89%) would go as often or more often to smoke-free café and restaurant terraces , and more than a third (35%) of smokers and vapers would like to reduce their exposure, in a survey published in June by the association Demain Sera Non-Fumeur (DNF).

Smoking is steadily declining in France, with "the lowest prevalence ever recorded since 2000," according to the French Observatory for Drugs and Addictive Trends (OFDT).

Less than a quarter of adults aged 18 to 75 reported smoking daily in 2023, the OFDT observed. Smoking causes 75,000 deaths per year and, according to the OFDT, costs society €156 billion per year (lost lives, quality of life, and productivity, prevention, enforcement, and care).

The new decree also strengthens penalties for the sale of tobacco and vaping products to minors, which now constitutes a fifth-class offense.