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France, the nation that coined the words cigarette and nicotine, bids adieu to centuries of smoking tradition today with the start of a ban on lighting up in cafés and restaurants.

Nostalgia for the old café society was running high last night as smokers greeted the new year with sardonic moans over un-Gallic intolerance. Nonetheless, the new clean-air law was welcomed by the great majority.

At the Royal Pereire, an old-style brasserie near the Arc de Triomphe, Jean-Daniel Prevost, 55, stubbed out his last butt on the floor and mourned the end of the café-clope (espresso-and-fag). “They’re taking away another part of life, but you can’t fight them any more,” he said.

From midnight a year-old ban on smoking in public and work spaces was extended to “places of entertainment and conviviality”. These locations, which also include night clubs, casinos and discos, had been given a reprieve to prepare for the shock.

To soften the blow further the prohibition will be policed only from tomorrow, initially sparing smokers from the €68 (£50) fine and proprietors the €750 penalty for allowing the breach. The ban is not absolute because smoking will be tolerated on terraces, even if they are covered. Sealed and ventilated smoking chambers are also allowed but their specifications are strict.

Under fire from tobacconists and country café owners, Roselyne Bachelot, the Health Minister, promised zero tolerance for offenders yesterday and said that the ban was a revolution that would improve everyone’s health. About 66,000 smokers and 6,000 non-smokers die annually from inhaling the fumes of the quarter of the adult population who still smoke, the Government says.

Ms Bachelot ruled out an exception for rural café owners who say that community life will come to an end when smoking is barred from the only village bar-tabac. René Le Pape, the militant head of the tobacconists’ association, predicted chaos and said that Ms Bachelot did not know what she was talking about. “I invite Ms Bachelot to come and see if the ban is so easy to apply as she makes out,” he said. The Government’s efforts to promote the new smoke-free life have not been helped by a glossy magazine spread last month showing President Sarkozy puffing a fat cigar at his desk in the Élysée Palace. The teetotal “Super-Sarko” is an unrepentant fan of large Havanas.

Media and the catering industry expect France to adjust to smoke-free dining, just as Britain, Italy and Ireland have done, despite resistance from die-hard addicts and proprietors. Libération, the newspaper founded by Jean-Paul Sartre, the chain-smoking existentialist philosopher, predicted: “The tobacco war will not take place. The majority of smokers and non-smokers are in favour of the end of cigarettes in restaurants and cafés. Everyone recognises that smoke is harmful.”

A whiff of resentment came from Le Figaro, which wondered what Sartre would have made of the modern view that “smoking is a deviancy”. It complained about the “Big Brother” State. “It is trying to supervise our behaviour. It wants us to drive less fast, drink moderately and stop smoking, on pain of being treated as a criminal.”

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