Detente Stops at Home

For centuries, the little town of Mauriac (pop. 4,300) nestled in comfortable obscurity amid the hills of central France. Then last March, hordes of inquisitive reporters and tourists in unprecedented numbers descended upon the somber community. Mauriac became front-page news, and an estimated 10 million Frenchmen tuned in for twice-a-day radio and television broadcasts from the center of town. The occasion for all of the hoopla: in one of the largest group efforts to kick the nicotine habit, 155 citizens of Mauriac decided to give up tobacco, cold turkey.* Their effort has been largely successful. More than 100 townspeople are still abstaining, another 38 have now taken the pledge, and hundreds more have cut down on their smoking.

Coffin. Mauriac's antismoking campaign was inspired by Mayor Augustin Chauvet (who has not smoked in years) and gleefully promoted by ORTF, the state-run TV-radio network. To launch the crusade, a four-man team of psychologists and doctors held five days of meetings designed to wean the Mauriaquois from their smokes. At one gathering, Team Member Dr. Jean Pinet passed a miniature coffin around the audience. "Put your cigarettes in it," he exhorted, "or they'll put you in one." Other experts showed graphic films of the cancerous lungs of heavy smokers. The propaganda convinced many townspeople to crush out their Gauloises and pledge, "I'll never smoke again."

As the campaign began, antitobacco fervor swept through Mauriac. Gaily colored banners proclaiming IT is POSSIBLE TO STOP SMOKING, EMANCIPATE YOURSELF IN FIVE DAYS began to brighten the dreary walls of lava stone buildings. Merchants reported a rush on licorice drops, peanuts, chewing gum, after-dinner mints and other tobacco substitutes. A man of God--his own flesh too weak to relinquish the weed completely--preached a sermon of support from his pulpit in the town's basilica. "I am not one of the courageous 155," acknowledged Father Leon Dumas. "But I have rationed myself down from ten to five cigarettes a day."

In this convivial atmosphere, even the most confirmed addicts have found new strength. "I was a slave to tobacco. I'd drive ten miles to find a pack of cigarettes if necessary," says Jean Maisonobe. "But I've stopped smoking. I can hardly believe it myself."

Smoking Skeptics. The crusade is not universally popular in Mauriac. "I have never slept so badly," says Jacqueline Forgereau, a chain smoker who took the pledge. "I manage to swallow half a gallon of mineral water daily, but I can't stop eating. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up." The most fervent denunciations of all have come from some of the town's six tobacconists, whose sales have dropped as much as 30%.

Despite the criticism, Mauriac's antismoking crusade seems to have become a permanent fixture. The 143-member nonsmokers association has placed at the town's four entrances blue-and-white signs reading MAURIAC, THE FIRST CITY IN THE WORLD TO HAVE SAID "NO" TO TOBACCO. There are already plans afoot to launch a second antitobacco offensive this summer. Visitors, many of them smokers seeking a cure, are still pouring in and bolstering local businesses--including the tobacco shops.

* In 1969 United Artists filmed the movie Cold Turkey (about a Midwestern town that gave up smoking) in Greenfield, Iowa. As a publicity stunt, one-third of the smokers of Greenfield actually gave up cigarettes for 30 days. Their reward: $6,000 from U.A.

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