In Milan, smoking will soon no longer be fashionable: the Italian capital of fashion and finance has decided to ban smoking outside from January 1, a first in the peninsula.
According to the "air quality ordinance" adopted in 2020 by Milan, "from January 1, 2025, the smoking ban is extended to all public spaces, including streets."
A ban that does not please Myriam Illiano, a 21-year-old saleswoman who finds this legislation "exaggerated". "Indoors I agree, because smoking can be annoying and it's not good for your health, but outside I don't see why," she told AFP.
On the other hand, Chiara Ciuffini, a 39-year-old content creator, is in favor: "I am athletic and I don't smoke, I hope that smokers can understand the desire of non-smokers to breathe cleaner air."
Only one exception is tolerated by the new regulation: "isolated places where it is possible to respect a distance of at least ten meters from other people", which in a dense and populated city like Milan is a feat of strength, except perhaps in the middle of the night. Electronic cigarettes are not affected by this measure.
The vice-president of the Italian Federation of Tobacconists, Emanuele Marinoni, himself the owner of a tobacco shop in Milan, expects "a drop in sales of 20 to 30%".
"Currently, people, when they are at the office, go outside to smoke. It is therefore obvious that there will necessarily be a drop in consumption" of cigarettes with this new ban, he declared to AFP.
Offenders face a fine ranging from 40 to 240 euros.
In the Lombard capital, smoking has already been banned since 2021 in public green spaces, except where it is possible to respect a safety distance of ten metres, in children's play areas, at bus stops and taxi ranks, as well as in all sports facilities.
– One in five Italians smokes –
Regularly affected by fine particle and nitrogen oxide pollution levels above the standards, the city of Milan, surrounded by a dense industrial fabric, is particularly sensitive to the fight against air pollution, and this is all the more so in view of the 2026 Winter Olympics, which it is hosting in partnership with the Cortina resort.
Cigarette smoke, "like any combustion phenomenon, contributes to the creation of particles," Milan's deputy mayor, Anna Scavuzzo, told AFP on Wednesday.
Almost one in five Italians smokes, according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics (Istat) dating from 2023, and 93,000 deaths per year are attributed to smoking, according to the Ministry of Health. For comparison, almost three in ten French people smoke, compared to 8% in Sweden and 37% in Bulgaria, respectively the best student and the dunce's cap of the European Union, where the average percentage of smokers stands at 24%.
Furthermore, in Italy the average price of a packet of cigarettes is six euros, compared to double that in France, for example.
Milan's move is part of a general movement to eradicate tobacco, like Mexico City, which banned smoking in certain areas of the historic center in 2022.
Among the most ambitious countries, the United Kingdom wants to become progressively tobacco-free. According to a draft law currently being adopted, people born after 2009 will never be able to legally buy cigarettes.
In addition to this generational ban, London wants to ban smoking in outdoor spaces such as children's playgrounds and around schools and hospitals.
Other countries, before the United Kingdom, have tried to implement a generational smoking ban. New Zealand had thus prohibited the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008 in 2022. But when they came to power at the end of 2023, the conservatives had abandoned the measure.
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