On the Island of Beauty, ten beaches will become non-smoking as of Monday.
The cigarette or the beach, it will now be necessary to choose. In Corsica, ten coastal areas are preparing to become non-smoking as of next week. An approach initiated a year ago in Porto-Vecchio, which had set up in Palombaggia the first tobacco-free beach on the Isle of Beauty.
These beaches have therefore received the “Tobacco-free beaches” label created three years ago by the League against cancer. Five are in Bonifacio. Currently, the program brings together 23 tobacco-free beaches in France, including the ten labeled in Corsica. The first non-smoking beach was created in 2012 in Nice.
11 to 38 euros fine
However, smokers can group together in zones of 200 to 300 meters, delimited by flags, in which it will be allowed to burn one. On the other hand, outside these places, they are exposed to class 1 tickets (from € 11 to € 38).
The objective, assure the authorities, is not so much to verbalize as to modify long-term behavior through awareness-raising operations. In Nice, “in 2013, less than 5 fines of 11 € were drawn up”, assures Christian Estrosi in an interview with Planet.fr.
Through this approach, it is also a question of contributing to the preservation of the environment, while cigarette butts litter the sand of the beaches and damage the coastlines. According to an Ipsos poll carried out for the Alliance against tobacco in May 2014, 72% of French people would be in favor of banning smoking on beaches.
This initiative is part of the government’s desire to increase the number of non-smoking areas, whether they are parks or university housing estates. The goal, in the words of the Minister of Health, is for the generation born today to be non-smokers themselves.
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