Ten days into France's smoking ban, Lara Marloweinvestigates how the sacred cafe culture of Paris is being affected.
For half a century, Saint-Germain-des-Prés has been synonymous with existentialism, left-wing intellectuals, cigarettes and coffee. Paris's socialist mayor even renamed the intersection on the Left Bank "Place Sartre-Beauvoir," after Jean-Paul and Simone, who spent their lives smoking, writing and holding court in Les Deux Magots and the Café de Flore.
But l'exception française took another bashing on January 2nd, when the French government banned smoking in cafes, restaurants and bars. "They airbrushed the cigarette out of Sartre's mouth in an exhibition at the Bibliothèque Nationale," recalls Emeric Desbois, a waiter at Les Deux Magots. "That was censorship. Now they've extended censorship to cafes." One's position on the smoking ban usually depends on whether one smokes or not, though this being France, some non-smokers defend smokers' rights and vice versa.
Wearing the traditional white apron, black waistcoat and bow-tie of French waiters, Desbois still ducks out for an occasional smoke on the pavement, but he fears this too may soon end. While we talk, a silver-haired gentleman sits outside the entrance to Les Deux Magots despite the inclement weather, puffing away on a pipe and scribbling furiously.
Francis Dupin has been the director of Les Deux Magots for 22 years. "When I was a student, I came here every day for my coffee, and I was so happy to become the director. It's a love that has lasted." A non-smoker, Dupin initiated a smoking ban at Les Deux Magots 11 months early, on February 1st, 2007. "More and more of our American clientele demanded non-smoking seating," he explains. "It has had not affected our turnover; on the contrary." There are 32 outdoor tables where customers can smoke to their heart's content.
Next door at the Café de Flore, 80-year-old François de La Motte smoked a hand-rolled cigarette before going inside for lunch. The smoking ban "destroyed a little more of the soul of Saint-Germain," he says. "We already lost a lot when the haute couture boutiques drove out the bookshops." A retired set designer, de La Motte nonetheless returns to his old haunts "for the pleasure, out of nostalgia".
Another elderly Frenchman, Daniel Renard, is doing a crossword inside the cafe. "I've come here every day for more than 50 years. Sartre and de Beauvoir used to sit here," he says with a sweeping gesture to indicate the back right-hand side of the cafe. "I always had a cigarette with my coffee, but I refuse to go outside to smoke. It's the end of a pleasant way of life." Two of les beautiful people, for whom Saint-Germain-des-Près is famous, sit nearby. Inès de La Fressange, the former high fashion model turned designer, compares the smoking ban to the disappearance of absinthe, the alcoholic drink that addled the brains of so many 19th-century Frenchmen. Like smoking, absinthe was an integral part of French culture, as seen in the posters of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
"Smoking is dangerous for those who don't smoke," says de La Fressange, "so I can understand the ban. I'm suffering from it, but I accept it. I loved lighting up . . . " She reproaches the government for not allowing special rooms for smokers, for not discovering a cigarette that has no ill effects on health . . .
Her luncheon companion, the designer Vincent Darré, compares the smoking ban to the prohibition of alcohol in 1920s America. "It's completely fascist," he says. "We live in a politically correct epoch, when everything has become bourgeois. This is the proof. We've reached the end of a cycle, and there will be another huge crisis and we'll all start smoking and drinking and dying . . . " The landmark cafes have fared better than the small bar-tabacs, which don't serve food. Albin Romieu, the cashier at Le Québec, just off the Place Sartre Beauvoir, says sales have dropped 20-30 per cent since January 2nd.
"We're open until 2am, and last night I didn't have a single customer," complains the bar tender, Jean Michel. "The ban is killing the little cafes. People retreat into their homes to smoke. Having coffee and a cigarette in a cafe was a social institution. It was a way to meet people, discuss life, kill time . . . " It took only a week for the French interior ministry to begin issuing €68 fines to smokers and €135 fines to bar and cafe owners who allow transgression. Some 800 cafes that specialise in oriental water pipes are in difficulty, and one of them, Le Sphynx, in Metz, is suing the state for damages.
A cafe in Rennes lends polar jackets to customers who want to smoke outside. And Le Figaro reports there's a silver lining to the latest assault on French tradition: in Ireland, the newspaper notes, the pavement outside a pub is the best place to find romance.