Europe Lessons #1: Smoking

I once promised I’d write an essay on smoking in Europe when I had the time, and now that uni’s over and I’m a free woman, time is all I have (OK, so I was lying through my teeth about that last part). Nevertheless, I have indeed had some time to think about the phenomenon that is smoking in France and Europe and how it differs from Australia.

The first thing that you notice is the prevalence. EVERYONE smokes. Glamorous young ladies with high heels and painted nails smoke. Middle-aged men drinking espressos at the corner cafes smoke. Attractive young uni students with two-tone scarves smoke. Little old ladies with bicycles smoke. Someone once told me that cycling was the national sport in Belgium, like soccer is everywhere else. That's not true. I've come to believe that smoking is, in fact, the continental sport of Europe.

I walk out of the airport with my luggage in tow and the two elegant Italian girls I saw on the train to Pisa airport have already got fags behind their ears and lighters held between their lips in preparation. I walk out of class and reach for my lip balm while my classmates reach for the tobacco and cigarette papers to have them ready for when we reach the ground floor. I walk back into class after break with a hot chocolate; they arrive five minutes late smelling of nicotine. It's just everywhere.

The second thing you notice is the self-righteousness. In Australia, smoking is BAD. You know that if you smoke that makes you BAD (or your chosen hobby is BAD), and you know that BAD people have no rights. You can't smoke in restaurants. You can't smoke in bus shelters. You can't smoke within five (or 10) metres of a building entrance. In fact, you can't smoke almost anywhere except your own home, and even then the landlord will probably charge you extra to clean the nicotine stains off the ceiling. If you breach any of these laws, some non-smoking citizen will tell you, politely or not, that you're not allowed to do what you're doing and move. This will be backed up by the imposing glares of other nearby non-smoking citizens who don't wish to have their health compromised by the personal irresponsible health choices of a random stranger. We're all about protecting everyone else from the adverse effects of smokers' personal choices, and do nothing for the smokers but freak them out with images of their future internal organs on the cigarette packets and put large holes in their bank accounts.

It's the inverse of Europe.

Here, cigarettes are a dime a dozen. In fact, one of the most frequent establishments you'll find in Europe and the one with the longest opening hours is the tabac (or tabacchi in Italian) - literally the tobacco shop. It also sells things like lottery tickets and mobile phone credit, but most people in the line at Le Bourget are looking for their daily poison-stick fix. And my suburb is pretty typical.

The laws are different too. While yes, there are laws to protect non-smokers, similar in most ways to Australian ones, they aren't enforced, and there's no law-abiding citizens to hold smokers to account. I'd be a little afraid of being lynched if I was to approach someone in France and inform them that no, they can't smoke here, it's against the law. And the laws aren't quite as strict, either. For example, it's forbidden to smoke in the main covered area of train stations, but it's allowed on the covered-but-open-to-the-air platforms. Doesn't matter that while it avoids a smoke build-up over time, it's just as bad for the non-smokers who are sitting on those platforms waiting for the train, watching the smoke drift in front of their faces because the smoker is standing upwind and there are no other seats on the platform to get away from them.

Pure-air breathers are far and away the minority here. At least, it feels like it most of the time. As a result, we just have to put up with fighting our way through the crowd of smoke and people outside the main doors of the university ('cause they can't just pollute the air, they have to block the whole footpath for 10 metres while they do it), live with always choosing to sit inside at restaurants to avoid getting a side serve of smoke with our meals, and basically build our whole existences around ignoring or avoiding those who choose to smoke.

What annoys me, apart from all of the above, is people who have a ciggy just before entering a non-smoking area, like a train. Making these zones non-fumeurs really doesn't help much if the fellow with the seat next to me sits down smelling so strongly of his last cigarette that I start coughing and choking until I almost have an asthma attack - an impressive feat, given I'm not actually asthmatic. And because he had his cigarette BEFORE he got on the train, he can't imagine that he's done anything wrong.

This is the other part - the attitudes. In Australia smokers frequently look almost cowed, knowing that they're second-class citizens in the eyes of the law and that everyone around them is condemning them to the eternal burning fires of the deepest, darkest hell. When in a public place or crowd, they're almost apologetic for their actions - or at least, everyone tries to make them feel like they SHOULD be. It's the opposite in France. My dirty glares do nothing here. I have to be apologetic for NOT smoking. Smokers are the ones with the rights here. Sure, there are limitations imposed on them by law, but when those laws apply to the majority, the majority can choose to ignore them and those who enforce the laws can decide that it's too hard to regulate and prosecute ALL of them - and chances are at least some of those law enforcement officers smoke, too.

On the plus side, not everyone thinks that smoking is cool, good or necessary. I met a Belgian guy a few weeks back who likes the Belgian royal family, but doesn't approve of Queen Marguerite's chain-smoking habit, and hates smoking in general, even though he's grown up in a culture that basically condones and promotes it. My Spanish friend (hi, Armando!) is the only one in his immediate family who doesn't smoke. This desire for self-inflicted lung cancer is not universal, and I'm always reassured by finding people, especially of my generation, who don't feel hell-bent on destroying themselves and their bank account in such a fashion, and who actively disapprove of the phenomenon in general.

Sadly, though, such encounters don't give me reason to think that the rate of smoking in Europe is likely to decline in coming years. There are just as many who do smoke as there are who don't. For me, this poses another annoying problem. The number of attractive young Frenchmen I've met (or Europeans in general, for that matter) is remarkably small, and it keeps decreasing. You would not BELIEVE how big a turn-off the sight of a cigarette or lighter can be, even behind the ear of the most ravishing young Spaniard or the most dashing Italian. After all, ignoring the part where I collapse on the ground from a non-asthmatic asthma attack, who actually likes kissing an ashtray?