There’s a stroy, possibly apochryphal. During the German occupation of France, a non-smoking German soldier was outraged when the surly Frenchman he was trying to interrogate at a checkpoint refused to take the cigarette out of his mouth. So he slapped it out of the Frenchman’s mouth, with the result that the now enraged Frenchman promptly decked him with a right hook, knocking the Jerry out cold. Of course, he was hauled off and imprisoned, but only after he’d finished his Gauloise… a German officer who watched this shook his head in disbelief and said “If they’d fought like that in June, 1940, they’d have got to Berlin!”
The moral of the story: the one thing the French will, most assuredly, fight for, is the right to smoke.
I understand Air France was the last foreign operator to ban smoking (under very intense pressure) on its flights to and from the USA, taking the point of view that while they might be flying over America, the space enclosed inside the fuselage was that of la belle France, and, helas for you Americans, French law applies. And French law says you may smoke, mon ami. If you don’t like this, travel by some other airline.
There’s a stroy, possibly apochryphal. During the German occupation of France, a non-smoking German soldier was outraged when the surly Frenchman he was trying to interrogate at a checkpoint refused to take the cigarette out of his mouth. So he slapped it out of the Frenchman’s mouth, with the result that the now enraged Frenchman promptly decked him with a right hook, knocking the Jerry out cold. Of course, he was hauled off and imprisoned, but only after he’d finished his Gauloise… a German officer who watched this shook his head in disbelief and said “If they’d fought like that in June, 1940, they’d have got to Berlin!”
The moral of the story: the one thing the French will, most assuredly, fight for, is the right to smoke.
I understand Air France was the last foreign operator to ban smoking (under very intense pressure) on its flights to and from the USA, taking the point of view that while they might be flying over America, the space enclosed inside the fuselage was that of la belle France, and, helas for you Americans, French law applies. And French law says you may smoke, mon ami. If you don’t like this, travel by some other airline.
you’ve got to admire them…