I quit smoking in 1971, but when I lived in Paris as a teenager I pretentiously smoked Gauloises Disque Bleus at Les Deux Magot and the Cafe de Flore. It’s a rite of passage, though, that has now been denied other pretentious American teens wearing black turtlenecks along Boulevard St. Germain or the Boul’ Mich’:
France bans smoking in cafes, hotels and clubs on Jan. 1, stamping out the habit popularized by Jean- Paul Sartre puffing Gauloises in hazy brasseries.
Many Parisians bemoan the prissiness regarding health and cuisine that is seeping in from America:
“Maybe we’re a bit stupid with our traditions, but we have the right to be as such and I cannot stand the idea of a hygienic, clean, and sorry to say ‘American style’ society,” said David Droulez, head of the Friends of Pleasure and Taste Association in Paris, which wants to defend France’s “epicurean conviviality.”
I’m with him. If Americans flirting with existentialism during their formative years can’t enjoy being enveloped by purple smoke from black tobacco in the Latin Quarter, what’s the world coming to?
UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg claims solidarity with the Friends of Pleasure and Taste Association by saying, “Ich bin ein Pariser.” However. a reader informs him that a “Pariser” is what Germans call condoms. Oops. Actually, we used to call them Seine River Whitefish because you couldn’t stand on a bridge in Paris for 10 seconds without seeing one float by.
