I am astounded by the number of people in Paris who smoke.

Is it a big number? Higher than normal in the western world? Seems to be.

(OK. Yes. It is. Despite smoking being banned, in public areas in 2005 and in restaurants in 2008, the number of French who smoke regularly has risen to 30 percent, according to this story. Meanwhile, the U.S. smoking rate is down to 19.3 percent, according to the CDC. And in California, it is down to 11.9 percent.)

A reality of smokers in Paris is that you will see them on sidewalks everywhere, because it is no longer legal to smoke inside, in an office or business.

So there they are, thousands of them, puffing away.

I do feel like shaking them and saying, “Are you serious? You’re going to wreck your health for the sake of some perceived hipness factor?” But it would be in English, and most of them would have no idea what I was saying, and wouldn’t get past me shaking them … which would be assault and battery.

Hmm.

In the photo above, we happened to catch a half-dozen boys, maybe 14 years old, at the moment of teaching themselves to smoke, and it struck me as pathetic and ridiculous.

We were sitting on a short wall, and just watching people go past, and there the kids were, passing around a couple of cigarettes.

I was thinking “black lungs” and “cancer” and “yellow teeth” and “reeking clothes” … and they apparently were thinking “adult” and “edgy.”

(I was reminded of “Mad Men” and the advertising industry, and how proud some ad man somewhere must be to see teens that young consuming cigarettes.)

And here we had thought the blight of tobacco had passed on from the First World and had become a problem in “emerging” economies, where people historically don’t much worry about how cigarettes will impact their health 20 years from now, because something else is likely to kill them first.

And the thing about these kids sneaking a smoke … they didn’t enjoy the process. No one does. You have to teach your body to smoke. And then you are hooked by the nicotine and the social conventions of it …

Just such a bad idea. And anti-social, as well. It remains legal to smoke on the “terrace” (outdoors) part of a restaurant, but cafes and bistros here don’t really do a good job of creating any sort of barrier between the fools “outside” smoking from the non-smokers “inside” a few feet away.

Still a lot of second-hand smoke in this city.

Anyway, I’m writing this mostly because we have the photo of the Smokers of Tomorrow.