Less than one year after France imposed a nationwide ban on smoking in most public places, it will, from Jan. 1, 2009, extend the ban to bars, restaurants, hotels, nightclubs—and the most cherished of all: cafés.
Ireland and Italy show that countries with long-standing smoking traditions may introduce bans fairly smoothly, as they did in 2004 and 2005. In Germany, where regulations vary locally, Berlin will join France on Jan 1. But fierce critics of the new law in France say it all but destroys the café's basic function: to serve as the socio-economic glue of society.
Cécile Perez, owner of La Fronde, a typical Parisian neighborhood café, said: “In the morning, street cleaners in bright green uniforms sip coffee next to well-dressed businessmen; at lunch hour, working-class types rub shoulders with those of the latest fashion at the bar, while couples of all ages rub noses over salads; during the after-work rush, there is a steady soundtrack of clinking glasses combined with conversation; the constant, no matter what time of day, is the smoke that drifts through the air in curls and clouds, seemingly unnoticed.”
“Our motto in France is: liberty, equality, fraternity,” Olivier Seconda, a regular at the café, said. “The café is the place that represents that. You’re free to smoke, everyone pays the same price for a beer and different kinds of people talk with one another. This new law goes against that.”
Seconda expects the ban to be felt even more strongly in small villages far from Paris, where the café is often the only means of social activity. “People already miss the space that allows people of all walks of life to share something—even if it is sometimes no more than a few words and the smoke floating between them.”
1.Cécile Perez mentions the curls and clouds of smoke drifting through the air to ______.
A．describe a friendly atmosphere
B．show the beauty of his own café
C．support the ban on smoking
D．remind us of something unnoticed
2.Olivier Seconda implies that ______.
A．the café provides people with enough liberty, equality, and fraternity