Even in a country with a public smoking ban in effect since 2008 that also recently legislated whitewashing and adorning cigarette packs with graphic imagery of cancer and decay, still "70 percent of new [French] movies show someone smoking at least once," according to Deadline. Nonetheless, select officials in Paris are aiming to stamp-out the implicit marketing power of cigarettes in cinema by making movies a smoke-free medium. By seeking to scrub cigarettes from French films, lawmakers there are, in essence, endeavoring to strike the final blow toward removing smoking from the public sphere altogether. Calling the majority of French films "cultural incitement[s] to smoke," socialist Senator Nadine Grelet-Certenais has spoken out for change along with the nation's Minister of Social Affairs and Health, Agnes Buzyn. Analysts have suggested that a lesser, more moderate, alternative to a ban would be to factor smoking into the nation's film ratings system.

Source: Forbes November 22, 2017 21:22 UTC