Skip to main content

Time for Cannes to give it up

Will World No Tobacco Day help you kick the habit?

featured in News & Reviews Author Pam Williamson, Cannes Editor Updated

World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) is observed around the world every year on 31st May and is intended to encourage a 24-hour period of abstinence from smoking and other forms of tobacco consumption around the globe.

France has long been a nation of smokers. Gauloise cigarettes were once something of a symbol of France and the romance of Paris. Jean-Paul Sartre smoked them, as did Albert Camus, Serge Gainsbourg, and even, at one time, George Orwell.

More recently though the smoking ban in public places and now public spaces has forced people to think twice before lighting up. This World No Tobacco Day is an opportunity for the 16 million French consumers, to try to get through a day without lighting up. Not easy!

Even the beaches of the Riviera are now slowly turning towards being 'tobacco free'. The following beaches are already non-smoking areas:

Nice

Cannes:

  • Bijou plage, boulevard de la Croisette (en face du Palm Beach)
  • ​Plage des Rochers, boulevard du midi à La Bocca.

Antibes:

  • Les plages en régie municipales: Richelieu and Garoupe.

Menton:

  • Plage du Fossan, boulevard du midi

Mandelieu:

  • Plage de la Raguette

Villefrance-sur-Mer:

As well as the municipal beaches of Antibes, cigarettes are also now banned in the public gardens of Anitbes, such as the parc Exflora and the château de la Pinède. So even if World No Tobacco Day doesn't make you give up, maybe the local smoking bans will...

News

  • woman walking over a rope bridge
  • Must-see attractions of Cannes for 2018
  • looking over the old port of cannes and along the bay
  • a stretch of sand in Cannes
  • Cannes luxury hotels for summer 2019

Events

  • What's on this Halloween 2019 in Mallorca
  • Cannes Cine Quartier (Open air cinema), Cannes
  • an image of fireworks out at sea with cannes croisette
  • La Bocca Night Market
  • Les Nocturnes du Quai Saint-Pierre Market
  • What's On in Cannes August 2018