Paris Journal II: Le Petit Fumeur

Photograph: Hallie Cohen

Only in Paris can you find Le Petit Fumer, a shop which specializes in “la cigarette electronique.” If you fell in love with those classic shots of Camus and Picasso, cigarettes dangling out of their mouths, when you were an impressionable young Francophile, but are now trying to kick the habit, Le Petit Fumeur is for you. The attractions are listed the minute you walk into the store “La Sante” (health), “70% economie," “pas de tabaqisme passif” (no innocent sufferers from your smoking), "le service client" and "le qualite." This new kind of smoking even has an endorsement from The Economist which is quoted as saying: “Le monde devrait accueiller la cigarette electronique” ("the world must welcome electronic cigarettes"). Now smokin’ Thai prostitutes have a more exotic solution which is to light up from another orifice, but if you're less adventurous yet want to live a certain style of life without suffering the consequences, Le Petit Fumeur offers an alternative. Always heeding what we might call "l’appel hedonistique” the French have found their way around the stoic suffering that addictive American smokers have to endure. Afashionably attired woman walking out of the Sevres Bablylon Metro stop, wearing bright red lipstick and a camel hair coat, already had her unlit cigarette in hand as she talked animatedly into her headset. She looked like a computer printout for the kid of customer Le Petit Fumeur is looking for.