At 4 p.m. this Tuesday, Montpellier will inaugurate its first tobacco-free space. A park, in the Celleneuve district. In total, ten spaces will be sanctuary in the city. Twenty more are expected to follow in the coming months. “A symbol marks and can change the image that children have of tobacco, explained, during the presentation of the future device, Élodie Brun Mandon, municipal councilor in charge of health and the fight against addictions. Going to a place where no one smokes is a form of awareness. It inspires good practices and shows children that it is perhaps better to live without tobacco. »
The seventh city of France is following in the footsteps of a national approach, led for ten years by the League against cancer, which awards a label to the cities involved. In total, the municipal decrees concern 5,162 spaces in 66 departments in France.
30 billion cigarette butts collected in cities each year in France
These tobacco-free places are most often located near schools, parks, children’s play areas, health centers or sports halls. But also certain beaches, like in Leucate in Aude. “The goal is to denormalize tobacco consumption. Seeing fewer and fewer people smoking, makes people less and less want to start, ”said Valentine Sarrut, in charge of prevention at the Hérault committee of the League against cancer.
A public health but also environmental and economic approach. The cost of cigarette butt collection is estimated at 38 euros per inhabitant and per year. Each year, nearly 30 billion cigarette butts are thrown into the streets of France, including 350 tonnes just for Paris.
The League for a National Decree
In the Hérault, Saint-Clément de Rivière was the first to issue a municipal decree to this effect. Followed in 2019 by Prades-le-Lez, a small town in the metropolis of Montpellier, where five places were banned. “These measures have been received very favorably. People understand very well the importance of not smoking in places frequented by children. “Beyond the sanction, we had planned to carry out educational actions with the children’s municipal council, the children of the extracurricular and the associations. But the Covid-19 pandemic and the first confinement unfortunately stopped everything.
If a decree already exists to prohibit the consumption of tobacco on playgrounds, the League against cancer wishes to go further. It campaigns for the publication of a decree generalizing tobacco-free spaces around schools, so that the approach is no longer punctual and left to the discretion of municipal councils, but applies to all. “Smokers are aware of their addiction to cigarettes and some suffer from it. They don’t want their children to adopt the same behavior,” concludes Valentine Sarrut.