France is a smokers country for instance.

France is an interesting comparison. As I understand it, smoking is highly class correlated in the US, but much less so in France.

I have a PhD and studied for a time at one of France's premier universities: my advisor smoked, and one graduate student in his lab smoked. All told, probably 10-20% incidence. In America I've worked with or around close to 100 physicists, and only one of them was a smoker.

That may explain something.

The other day I watched a French movie - "Other peoples' children". I had to check and re-check and check again if this was an old movie re-launched or something. In the movie the actors all started smoking at private dinners (with, in this case, a small child living in the house), women with cigarettes held vertically in that stupid-looking way, like in an old fifties tobacco ad. I couldn't understand why that was made part of a movie which was supposed to be "slice of life". It looked completely wrong. I can't imagine people smoking inside houses now, none of the people I know who still smoke will actually smoke inside. None. And everyone just grabbing a cigarette inside that living room? I think I even saw a cigarette scene inside a restaurant too.

No one in my family smokes but my childhood best friend's mom smoked a lot inside their apartment (not a very big space), and I spent so much time over there. It was sad, they always had a smell about them because of this. They were indoor kids and I spent years of my youth at their place playing video games and D&D. I didn't know any better as a kid but I think back on it and wonder how much that affected my lungs. I stopped going over so much around my senior year of highschool (mid-90s) and then eventually lost touch in the late 90s because our lives went in different directions so my lungs have probably recovered a lot from whatever damage that did. Now I hate the smell of cigarette smoke and can smell it from a good distance away.

IMO this is because France was reluctant to increase the price of tobacco. I remember going to NYC in 2010 and a packet of cigarettes was 15$, nearly 3 times what I used to pay in France. Now they’ve set tobacco prices increase in motion, I expect the number of smokers to drop significantly. In the UK where tobacco prices have been on par with the US, I notice much fewer smokers than in France, and most of them seem to be foreigners

I believe around 20% of respondents in the Netherlands said they smoked in 2020.

For the same period, Iceland though was close to the US, with a reported rate of 12% of respondents saying they smoked.

> said they smoked

"Smoked cigarettes right? :D"

Netherlands: stares in Dutch

"Smoked cigarettes right? :o"

Austria

Yeah Austrian restaurants were an absolute shocker for me. There are so many places where the 'non-smoking area' absolute reeks of second hand smoke.

Coming out from a night out with your clothes smelling like cigarettes felt like going back 30 years in time.

I'm not sure when you have been there last. The smoking ban passed a few years already, I haven't smelled cigarette smoke inside in a long time. Patios on the other hand is a different story altogether where sadly smoking is still allowed.

Indeed I now realize it may not be very up to date. I was there pre pandemic perhaps this is now changed as you say.

Most of Eastern and Southern Europe, for sure. Whenever I visit and go to a bar I have a mild shock at the smoke everywhere.