France, the land of fashion and love, is famous today for smoking. That’s right. France, which is vastly popular for the Eiffel Tower and the Garden of Versailles is becoming famous as everyone in the country is seen to be smoking left and right. But why do French people smoke so much?
France has been the homeland of many great people. On March 12, 1613, André Le Nôtre—one of the greatest French landscape architects, whose masterpiece is the gardens of Versailles—was born in Paris. From Napoleon Bonaparte to Coco Chanel, France has had an abundance of successful and intelligent people who have contributed hugely to its amazing and much-envied culture. But why are we hearing murmurs of a large extent of the French population being a slave to a cancer stick? Is this rumor true or just a stereotype people have propagated, much like Indians loving spice, not all of us do. Let us take a quick look at the intricacies of why do french people smoke so much?
Also Read – Surprising Facts About Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky
Statistics Of Smoking In France
France was known as a smoking haven in the 1960s because of how many people in the country were consuming tobacco. However, if the trend continued, it would make sense that the French would have the highest rate of cancer patients among their European counterparts. But the facts show something opposite, with France ranking lower than Ireland and Belgium at the sixth rank of Global Cancer rates. This could be explained only by one of these two theories, either French people have smoked so much that they have evolved and developed immunity to the effects of tobacco or the health system is better than other European countries.
But, even though adults of France have started to give up on smoking, the teens and youngsters of the country seem to indulge way too much in this trend. For them, smoking holds more appeal and they don’t seem to consider it a stigma or a bad habit. More than 40 percent of teenagers smoke in France. Teenagers smoking it at parties think of smoking as more of social behavior than anything else. And while France is not exactly supporting or encouraging smoking, it is not demotivating it either, what with the laws of smoking being so lax in the country.
Why Do French People Smoke So Much?
Now, the question is why? Why do French people smoke so much? There could be many reasons for that question. One of the reasons could be that the French think of it as a social thing. Many young French girls often are influenced by smoking as a part of its culture and take it up as a rite of passage. And for many young French people, smoking is not noxious but glamorous. Even though there are so many reasons why do french people smoke so much, nothing can justify the young generation of France being so attracted to the trend of smoking. Although the rate of smoking has dropped largely since the death of André Le Nôtre, the number of young people in France taking up smoking is outright alarming.
For more related updates, visit Discover – Trending Reader