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Anti-Smoking Ads Shock France 

The French aren't exactly squeamish when it comes to sex. Nor do they typically bat an eye when it comes to racy content in advertising. Now, however, a controversy has erupted over an ad that some feel has gone a step too far: it doesn't just evoke oral sex but actually seems to depict it. Worse still, the salacious images are targeting young people in what would otherwise be a laudable campaign — trying to stop them from smoking.

Family groups, women's rights organizations and myriad bloggers have joined members of Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government in objecting to what the Secretary of State for Family Affairs, Nadine Morano, has termed a "public outrage to decency" and vowed to ban. On Wednesday, the Association of French Families filed an official complaint with the national advertising regulators, accusing the campaign of violating ethics rules. Why all the fuss? The posters by the Non-Smokers' Rights Association (NSR) each feature a man or woman who looks to be in their late teens kneeling before a fully clothed adult male. A cigarette dangles from the youth's mouth, extending downward before seeming to disappear into the man's pants. Below the photo is a caption that reads: "Smoking Means Being a Slave to Tobacco."

Despite the anti-smoking message, detractors say the ads, which debuted on Monday in bars, cafés and tobacco shops, are in bad taste at the very least. Some critics say they even verge on child pornography. "There are other ways of explaining to young people that cigarettes are addictive," Morano railed on Tuesday on the radio station RTL. "Shocking people about tobacco doesn't bother me, but there are other campaigns doing that."

The anti-smoking group, however, disagrees. "The first cigarette is often viewed as a rite of passage toward the adult world and an emancipation," NSR says in a statement on its Web page, noting that while smoking has declined among most age groups, it has risen to 40% of 12-to-25-year-olds. "The campaign seeks to reverse that impression and make people aware that smoking isn't a defiance of authority, but instead a sign of submission and naiveté — a behavioral, psychological and physical submission to an addictive drug that will control their acts, dirty their bodies and cost them dearly."