It began on the 16th of November, when the Senator from Sarthe, Nadine Grelet-Certenais, judged that smoking in French cinema makes it seem commonplace to young viewers, maybe even promoting it.
Is it possible that the film industry beloved by the French may be a veritable "cultural incitement to smoke?"
But the debate really took off when the Minister for Health, Agnès Buzyn, supported the senator’s views, saying he did not understand "the importance of cigarettes for French cinema."
Buzyn then promised “a decisive act” against the cigarettes on screen.
That was enough to incense lovers of French cinema, who immediately cried censorship.
Social media lit up as audiences questioned whether artistic creation should be an extension of state public health policy. The sparks were flying, and some were actually pretty funny.
Translates to: "In addition, characters from French films will now have to eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day"
Drawing by Deligne translates to: 'We will do it again but without the cigarette.'
- 'It's a little too much.'
Certain critics have pointed to the contradiction of tolerating violence and drugs in film while trying to ban the cigarette.
Others, like the actor and director Xavier Beauvois, appear a little doubtful:
Translates to: ‘Don’t worry, we’ll switch to Belgian films.’
French film industry authorities had no hesitation in rejecting the idea of a politically correct, normative, and sterilized cinema.
Interviewed by the AFP, Frédéric Goldsmith, Executive Officer of the Cinema Producers’ Union expressed that, "cinema does not exist to reflect society as the State would like it to be," and that the fight against smoking "cannot be achieved by attacking artistic freedoms."
Serge Toubiana, the representative of Unifrance, the organisation that promotes French cinema overseas, compared the idea of banning cigarettes from the screen to “an admission of the failure of public health policy."
He believes, “cinema is an art, something to be enjoyed, entertainment, it is not a propaganda tool for cigarettes."
If film characters no longer light up after making love, and if the magical moment when faces are spot lit from the glow of a lighter were itself to go up in smoke, would the French (and others) feel less inclined to light one for themselves?
The World Health Organisation, at any rate, advises that anti-smoking announcements be shown before screenings, that ratings be based on the age of a film in which smokers appear, and that film producers declare that they have not received anything in return for the presence of tobacco in their films.
While cigarette producers refrain from officially placing their products in films, an investigative documentary showed, for example, that the hit film Amélie received financial support from Imperial Tobacco in exchange for the appearance of the famously French Gauloises cigarettes.
The Minister for Health finally doused the fire a few days ago by declaring, "I never envisaged banning cigarettes from cinema or from any other artistic work. Creative freedom must be guaranteed."
Since then, Health Minister Agnès Buzyn has inflamed the French yet again when, commenting on the subject of optometry reimbursements, she claimed that the role of the state is "not to give everyone a free pair of Chanel frames."
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