Pardonnez-moi, mais est-ce que vous avez une cigarette?

The other night I was walking past a tram station with some other French teenagers. There was one lone person sitting on the bench and as we passed, he politely asked us with a strained, shaky voice if we had a cigarette. As he stood up to take a cigarette from the token chain smoker of the group, I noticed that his hands were covered in bloody and oozing cuts, his face was pale, and he had dark circles under his sunken eyes. The white stripes on his dirty blue track suit glowed slightly in the light coming from the street lamps... This haunting figure has now become someone I find myself thinking of often. I wonder why he was there, why his hands were cut, and what ever became of him afterward. Did he enjoy his cigarette? Did he stumble down to the Loire, fall in and drown? (This fate is pretty common in Nantes and at least one body is pulled from the river per year) I've also wondered if he was he a ghost... When we walked away from this man, no one said anything but everyone knew that he was having a rough night... At least he got a cigarette to keep him company in his upsetting condition.


You may be asking yourself now, what is the point of this bizarre little story? Well, it's the prologue to my blog about smoking in France.


Smoking in France! When one pictures the stereotypical French person, what does one see? Well, when I picture this person, I see a skinny man with a bushy mustache, black beret, striped sweater, black pants, a baguette under his left arm, and in his right hand: a cigarette. Oh! There are is also a stain of snail juice on his shoe from the escargot he ate earlier that day. I'm sure that what you were all picturing was more or less the same. It turns out that this stereotype, while being horribly wrong, is at the same time a little right. A lot of French people smoke, somewhere around 20% of the population, and everyone eats baguettes. I've also noticed a lot of striped shirts as well... I've only seen one person wearing a beret since being here, and it was purple.

At high schools in France, it is illegal to smoke cigarettes on campus. But once you're off campus you can smoke to your heart's content. (No pun intended, given that hearts don't want their owner's to smoke as it kills them) The high school that I go to is split up into two separate buildings on each side of a road. The road and sidewalk in between the buildings is considered off-campus. Therefore between classes and during breaks there are hoards of teenagers out on the sidewalk smoking cigarettes. I would say that a little over half of people at my high school smoke, despite the school's valiant effort to curb it. (When I say valiant I mean paltry. I've seen two posters at the high school that talk about negative effects of smoking on the body. That's one poster for every 400 students there.) When I have to walk in between buildings I always hold my breath because the air reeks of tobacco, and if you're unlucky enough to accidentally inhale you get a nice blast of second-hand smoke. The ground is also covered in the leftover butts; there is a little puddle where I think people have a subconscious agreement to throw all of their butts. Poor puddle.
I've already mentioned as well how I discovered two French boys smoking pot in the girl's bathroom, so marijuana is around too. In fact, a boy who goes to Perrine's school smokes pot between every class while all of his other friends are smoking tobacco. This is the chain-smoker I was talking about. Over the course of a night he smoked about a pack and a half of cigarettes. I was impressed and grossed out at the same time. I wonder what shade of black or brown his lungs are.

When I've asked around as to what the specific age is for smoking cigarettes here, no one really knows. Sometimes I hear "oh anyone can buy cigarettes" and other times I hear "it's definitely 16". I don't think it matters as I've seen people aged 13 and up smoking cigarettes.I'm lucky because no one in my host family smokes cigarettes but they certainly do love cheese!

Cheese > cigarettes.