France Ends Smoking Ban In Posters And Photographs

(Huffington Post) The French have long been synonymous with tobacco use, with national icons like fashion designer Coco Chanel and filmmaker-comedian Jacques Tati usually seen puffing away on the streets of Paris.
And now, politicians will be letting those bygone heroes indulge in their favorite vice once more, as a French parliamentary commission voted Wednesday for a bill that would exclude cultural heritage from the stringent health legislation passed in 1991 that forbids any direct or indirect promotion of smoking, the AFP is reporting.
"The falsifications of history, the censorship of works of the mind, the denial of reality... should remain the ignominious mark of totalitarian regimes," the bill proposed by the opposition Socialists is quoted by the Telegraph as saying. Continued

Photo: Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot.