The first non smoking beach in Europe

Smoking in enclosed public spaces, as it is in the UK and Spain, is prohibited in France, and on the Cote d’Azur it looks highly likely that smoking will be made illegal on the beaches as well.

If you are not a smoker and are enjoying a restful day on the beach, doing nothing in particular except sunbathing and swimming, a waft of cigarette smoking weaving through the air and into your nostrils, is off-putting and slightly irritating to say the least.

This sentiment is widely advocated by the French public, who, if they had their way, would see smoking being banned from beaches.

According to a recent survey conducted by the French polling agency ifop, three out of four French citizens would be in favour of a ban of smoking on beaches in France. 42% of the survey respondents said they were strongly in favour of the ban, whilst only 9% of participants strongly opposed it.

The town of La Ciotat in the Bouches-du-Rhone department of the Cote d’Azur province is the first town to implement the first non smoking beach in Europe.

This small and picturesque village attracts a steady stream of visitors throughout the summer months, although since the ban came into effect earlier this summer, the beach at la Ciotat, known as “Plage Lumiere”, has attracted a larger crowd than usual.

The new legislation came as a result of the local council receiving requests for more ‘child-friendly’ beaches.  Talking about the smoke-free beach, Noel Collura, La Ciotat’s deputy mayor for the environment, said:

“We don’t stop smokers from going elsewhere, but this one we want to reserve for nonsmokers, for mothers and children so they can make sand castles and not cigarette butt sand castles.”

Anyone found to be ignoring the ‘no smoking’ signs on the beach are liable to receive a 35 euro fine.

Plage Lumiere on the Cote d’Azur is the first beach in Europe to implement a smoking ban, with the only other place in the world to have similar legislation being in New York, which, earlier this year, banned smoking from all public areas.

Judging by the popularity of the first non smoking beach in Europe and the fact that three-quarters of French people are in favour of banning smoking on beaches, long gone are the days when France had a notoriously “laissez-faire” attitude to smoking.