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Something Smells Rotten In The State Of France
Another unforeseen outcome of France's smoking ban. That blue haze of cigarette smoke didn't just add to the atmosphere of the nightclubs of Paris - it kept them smelling good, too.
For what is a nightclub, if not a place where hundreds of people gather, dance and get sweaty into the early hours? When half those punters were puffing away, the smell of smoke covered a multitude of sinners: Now the fanatically clean government has blown all traces of smoke away, clubgoers have discovered the inevitable outcome of all that hot and heavy action: Paris's nightclubs stink like locker rooms.
Charles Bremner reports that a few nightclub owners have complained off the record that clients, and in particular women, are staying away. Of course, no-one wants to go on the record as owning a smelly nightclub, so the story isn't over the French papers yet.
Short of fumigating the clubs every morning, what can be done? Are we about to see a new trend for strong perfumes to mask the smell - or are clubbers going to return to the days where ladies would carry perfumed bouquets to mask the smell of plague?
And before you think we're having a go at the unwashed French, our correspondent in Britain tells us that if anything, British pubs are even worse. It's something to do with all that gassy beer the Brits consume. We'll spare you the details.
Bremner adds another side effect. Bar and restaurant owners have reported instances of customers leaving their table to go into the street for a cigarette after the main course, then clearing off without paying the bill.
"Some establishments watch their smoking customers carefully, insisting that they leave some possession at the table as a sign that they are coming back", he reports.
Smokers have long known that sharing cigarettes, or a lighter, with a stranger on public transport or at a bar, is a great way to meet people or break the ice. It's a gesture of friendliness and solidarity. Now, with smokers being forced outside, unscrupulous customers running off without paying and serving staff forced to watch their clients with suspicion or demand a guarantee in the form of a coat, a phone or an iPod, we see yet another nail in the coffin of France's civil society.
