All of Nice’s 25 public beaches are going smoke-free this summer, up from just five last year, and a team of volunteers has joined the Mairie-led ‘zéro mégot’ mission to rid the famous seafront of cigarette butts with a weekly clean-up operation. 

Towards the end of 2023, signage went up along the Promenade des Anglais and on Nice’s public beaches warning that smoking is now prohibited along the full length of the city’s public beaches. 

In all, 25 designated beach sites are now smoke-free. Last year, five of the city’s public beaches had banned smoking, following on from a decision back in 2012 to make the beach in front of the Lenval hospital France’s first non-smoking beach.  

Smokers who ignore the rules could face a €150 on-the-spot fine.  

“The objective is twofold: to protect the health of Nice’s residents and to preserve the environment,” reads a statement put out by the Ville de Nice. “Every year, 150 million cigarette butts, a major source of pollution, are discarded in the city’s streets.” 

Additionally, a team of volunteers is working away to clear the beaches of discarded butts each Saturday, and France 3 has reported that as many as 20,000 butts were collected by the workers in just a single hour, demonstrating the extent of the pollution on Nice’s beaches.  

The Principality of Monaco, like many other municipalities along the Riviera, has also implemented similar measures in recent years.

See more: Monte-Carlo SBM backs project transforming cigarette butts into insulation 

Earlier this year, the Monaco Government confirmed that smoking would be banned on four of the Principality’s beaches – Larvotto, Plage des Pêcheurs, Plage du Solarium and the beach by La Méridien Beach Plaza – between 31st May and 30th September.  

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Photo source: Yijie Liu, Unsplash