Can Sweets Replace Subway Cigarettes?

Transit officials in Paris are hoping chocolates will work where no-smoking laws have failed: in the subways. Agents of the Regional Transit Authority began handing out bonbons in May in hopes of persuading smokers to wait until they’re above ground to light up.

Smoking is forbidden in the city’s subway system, with violators subject to $20 fines. The laws are difficult to enforce in Paris, where smoking remains extremely popular.

Few smokers dare to light up in the cars, but many ignore the no-smoking signs on subway platforms and in underground shopping concourses. Nationwide, roughly one in two Frenchmen and one in three women smoke.