Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- France bans smoking in cafes, hotels and clubs on Jan. 1, stamping out the habit popularized by Jean- Paul Sartre puffing Gauloises in hazy brasseries.

In Germany, 11 of the country's 16 states plan similar restrictions for 2008. Six of those, including Berlin and Bavaria, start Jan. 1. France banned smoking in offices and public places this year. Germany prohibits puffers at train stations and federal buildings.

The limits are part of the European Union's public health plan initiated in 1985. In France and Germany, more than 200,000 people die each year from tobacco. The new restrictions have drawn criticism from smokers' groups, restaurant associations and civil liberties organizations in both countries.

``Maybe we're a bit stupid with our traditions, but we have the right to be as such and I cannot stand the idea of a hygienic, clean, and sorry to say `American style' society,'' said David Droulez, head of the Friends of Pleasure and Taste Association in Paris, which wants to defend France's ``epicurean conviviality.''

France and Germany are following Ireland, Norway, Malta, Finland, the U.K. and Italy that already have banned smoking in public places. Germany's hotel and restaurant association will contest the restrictions in court, said Stefanie Heckel, a spokeswoman for the group representing about half the industry's businesses.

``It's the little bars and pubs that will have the most problems,'' she said.

Falling Sales

Revenue at these bars will probably fall about 10 percent, she said. France's 800 water-pipe cafes, also called shisha cafes, will lose their main source of revenue, said Violette Vanhoenacker, a spokeswoman for their union.

``On Jan. 1, we'll be dead and 4,000 people will be ruined and jobless,'' she said in an interview.

About a quarter of Germans, or some 20 million people, smoke, according the federal drug commissioner's Web site. About 140,000 people die a year from the habit. Germans bought 94.1 billion cigarettes in 2006, 34 percent less than in 2001, according to Euromonitor International Plc, a U.K.-based market research company.

France has 14 million smokers, or 22 percent of its population. About 72,000 deaths are linked to smoking annually.

Economist Pierre Kopp at the Sorbonne University in Paris said tobacco-related costs, including absenteeism, fiscal and insurance expenses represent 3.1 percent of France's gross domestic product.

Healthcare Deficit

France wants to narrow its public health-care deficit to 4.2 billion euros ($6.2 billion) in 2008 from 5.9 billion euros in 2006.

The country increased cigarette prices 42 percent between 2003 and 2004, cutting consumption by 32 percent, according to the Health Ministry.

Altadis SA, which sells Gitanes and Gauloises, expects the ban to reduce sales as much as 4 percent in 2008, said Anne-Marie Lassalle, a spokeswoman for Altadis France. The company sells 56 billion cigarettes in France every year.

``We believe that a system that would have maintained smoking venues and other non-smoking ones would have respected both health and the freedom for smokers,'' she said.

In Germany, some cafes are renaming their establishments ``clubs'' to skirt the restrictions. The Ivory Club, a restaurant in Frankfurt's banking district, did that in October, when a ban was imposed by the state of Hessen.

``If the government were to forbid it, then it would make our business illegal,'' said restaurant manager Christoph Meier. ``We have a non-smoking room, as well as one with a high-tech ventilation system. We love non-smokers.''

Welcome Move

A poll by Paris-based institute BVA for the National Health Institute in September showed that 79 percent of the French agreed with the total ban in restaurants, 71 percent for cafes, pubs and bars, and 67 percent for clubs.

Christian Navet, the Paris representative of UMIH, the French union of cafes, restaurants, clubs and hotels, said he expects patronage in bistros to drop at the morning rush hour. ``But the drop may not last,'' he said. ``Habits do change.''

Images such as Sartre at Paris's Cafe de Flore and novelist Guy de Maupassant and poet Charles Pierre Baudelaire puffing away at cafes made smoking fashionable.

Actress Jeanne Moreau, Francois Truffaut's muse, who acted in the 1962 ``Jules et Jim,'' once said in her smoker's voice, ``I don't trust men who don't smoke.''

``Smoking in Paris cafes is folklore,'' Andre Daguin, president of UMIH, said in an interview. ``It will be hard on small businesses in the beginning, but I have no doubt their business will breathe new air again soon.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 27, 2007 18:01 EST