• In Rennes, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique banned smoking on its campus in 2018.
  • Five years after its adoption, the measure is unanimous, even among smokers, some of whom have reduced their consumption.
  • There are about 12 million smokers in the France. A stable figure that would have climbed under the effect of the health crisis.

It's been five years since she stopped. And at no time did she think of diving back. Since quitting smoking, she feels better, cleaner and looks better. It is the Ecole des hautes études en santé publique (EHESP) in Rennes, the first higher education institution in France to ban tobacco, in 2018. Five years after banning cigarettes from its campus, the school organized a festive event on Wednesday as part of World No Tobacco Day. The opportunity to celebrate a bold choice, which today does not suffer from any challenge or questioning. "We were told that the campus was tobacco-free on the first day. My first reaction was to tell myself that it was a lot of time. " says this student. With a cigarette in his hand, he willingly complies with the smoking ban on campus and visits one of the five dedicated spaces every day. "It allowed me to reduce my consumption. Sometimes I can do without it because I'm lazy to move. »

Cathy Gauvin, nurse addictologist at the Saint-Laurent clinic, intervenes in the school every Monday for free consultations. "By banning smoking, we allow everyone to think about their way of smoking, to have an outside look at their consumption. We can wonder if this cigarette is useful, "says the health professional. For her, "the fewer smokers you see around you, the less you want to smoke".

"I think it allowed me to diminish"

And the situation is striking. On the campus located in the Villejean district, we meet only a few smokers, confined to spaces located far from the buildings. Branding? "That's the impression I had at the beginning, especially because we were not many," says a staff member, electronic cigarette in hand. But it was accepted very quickly. I even think that it has played on my consumption, that it has allowed me to decrease. »

In one of the shelters, we cross paths with a "student principal". Like many students here, she is preparing to run a health facility. "It has clearly allowed me to decrease, especially since I live on campus," she says. Normally, she would have grilled "5 to 6 cigarettes" in the evening after class. With the ban, she allows herself "one after eating". Other smokers on campus believe that the ban "has not changed anything" for them but applaud the initiative.



Five years after its implementation, the school's choice to ban smoking from its indoor and outdoor spaces is unanimously welcomed. "It makes the campus more enjoyable. Before, we had smokers at each entrance of the school, it was not very pleasant to pass in a cloud, "says a student of the EHESP. During their lunch break, staff members nod: "In the morning, it can make you nauseous. Sometimes you had the smells coming out of the window, it was not pleasant. Another visible benefit of this rule is cleanliness. "You don't see a single cigarette butt on the ground. It helps keep the campus clean," said a group of students.

"Let the school be exemplary"

The school training future directors of health facilities is banking on this singularity and hopes to plant the idea in a corner of the minds of its students. "At the time, the principal wanted the school to be exemplary. He wanted to make them want to reproduce the same pattern in their school of tomorrow," explains Marion Ganivet, deputy HR Director of the school. Before banning cigarettes, the school had created a task force and surveyed its students and staff to find out how they felt. "From the beginning, the acceptability was already strong. Today, it has become a habit. And when you go to another campus, you quickly see the difference," continues the Deputy HR Director. On the other side of the road, tobacco has not been banned from the Villejean campus occupied by the universities of Rennes-1 and Rennes-2. And the contrast is stark.


According to a study published Wednesday by Public Health France, our country has 12 million smokers, or more than 30% of the population aged 18 to 75. After years of decline, the figure is now stable, presumably due to the Covid-19 crisis and the stress it has caused. Among daily smokers, 59.3% say they want to quit.

  • Health
  • Tobacco
  • Smoking
  • Cigarette
  • Electronic cigarette
  • No smoking
  • Higher education
  • Society
  • Rennes
  • Ille-et-Vilaine
  • Brittany
  • Student