Bienvenue *cough* a la *cough* France *wheeze*
suggested alternate title: “French women don’t get fat–they just die of lung cancer”
Smoking is surely the most vile and senseless of all the ordinary vices and habits found among the inhabitants of this planet. You can hardly venture out in public without having your senses assaulted by the externalities caused by smokers. Cigarette butts litter public spaces from city streets to nature trails. Second-hand smoke is a mainstay in bars and many restaurants. Even in places where indoor smoking is banned, smokers often light up in entryways–especially on days with inclement weather–forcing everyone else to cut through a noxious cloud to get in or out of the building. Needless to say, I’m not very sympathetic to “smokers’ rights.”
And then there’s the French, who have a reputation for loving cigarettes as Philadelphians love cheesesteak sandwiches. In America, at least, the instantly-recognized stereotype of a French person is a beret-wearing cafe patron sucking on a coffin nail. But is this stereotype deserved? Unfortunately, research shows that it is.
In 1997, 27.6% of adult men and 22.1% of adult women in the US smoked cigarettes on a daily basis. By 2003, that figure had dropped to 24.1% for men and 19.2% for women. In comparison, 35% of French men and 21% of French women were daily smokers in 1996. In 2003, smoking among French men had declined to 30%, but French women’s smoking remained virtually unchanged at 21.2%.
As one might guess, lung cancer deaths are rising sharply in France (they are falling in the UK, by the way), and soaring among French women. I even uncovered this disturbing summary of a journal article citing a high prevalence of smoking during pregnancy in France.
Thankfully, there are signs that Frenchmen will not meet the same fate as Gary Larson’s dinosaurs. (As this article–which praises France as a “smoker’s paradise”–notes, you can actually find restaurants with non-smoking sections now!) But if our Gallic friends would like to stop being the butt of so many jokes, perhaps they should stop choking on so many butts?
4 Responses to “Bienvenue *cough* a la *cough* France *wheeze*”
What I wonder is why lung cancer deaths are rising. Shouldn’t they always be high, as a result of the strong smoking culture in France? I would even accept a slight decline in deaths because of treatment advances, but a rise?? Maybe something else is contributing.
I guess it’s possible that smoking rates weren’t as high in France in the 1950s, and the smoking Frenchman is a stereotype only rightly formed in the decades since.
Yes, Adam, I suspect you’re right. Also, from one of the articles I read, French women didn’t smoke very much until the past few decades.
“Shouldn’t they always be high, as a result of the strong smoking culture in France? I would even accept a slight decline in deaths because of treatment advances, but a rise?? Maybe something else is contributing.”
Alternatively, people could be dying less of other diseases, and thereby dying later of lung cancer.
I once knew an Immunologist who smoked like a chimney. I asked him one day how he could possibly smoke so much when he knew the obvious dangers to his health. His response? “Josh, in my business, you learn pretty quick that everything is going to kill you.”
So yes, it’s quite likely that through advances in medical treatments, cancer is catching more than it used to.
By the way, I think it would be great for businesses to decide to bar smoking on their own. But don’t tell a bar owner that he has to ban something bars are infamous for.