Trends have a way of getting started in California, sneered at by the rest of the world, then adopted overseas with rigor. Such has been the case with the war on cigarettes, for years dismissed by Europeans as petty, provincial and puritanical. Nowadays France and other nations are fast catching up with serious no-smoking curbs of their own.
In the land of Gauloises, where 40% of the populace lights up, a law that went into effect this month restricting smoking in most public places led to predictions of angry bistro battles. Instead, hostile encounters have been rare and the ban is...