Paris to trial park tobacco smoking ban

A park in Paris is due to ban tobacco smoking as part of a trial that, if it proves to be popular, could pave the way for smoking to be banned in all public parks, according to a story in The Local France.

In making the announcement, Mayor Anne Hidalgo reportedly said Paris was going to roll out a pilot tobacco ban in one of the City of Light’s parks with the intention of “teaching the public about addictions.”

Hidalgo refused to say in which park the trial would be conducted.

Talk of the trial follows a suggestion by a Paris municipal councilor that smoking should be banned in all the neighborhood’s playgrounds.

And it comes after Health Minister Marisol Touraine said she would like to see cigarettes banned on all beaches, in public parks and on pavements outside schools.