French Cafe Games Get a Tax Break

The image of the French cafe as a good place for a cigarette and a philosophical debate could soon be replaced by smoke-free darts tournaments.

The government, fearful that cafe and bar owners could rise up against next year's smoking ban, yesterday announced tax breaks on pinball machines, darts and table-football in an attempt to get businesses to diversify.

The budget minister, Jean-François Copé, announced the cuts as he tried out the new "babyfoot" table at the Chez Jeannot et Marilou cafe in the north Paris suburb of Saint-Ouen.

A bar or cafe has to pay between €16 (about £11) and €92 in tax per game, which can rise to €400 with local council charges. Mr Cope said from January the tax would be cut to €5, encouraging more games in bars and attracting young people to socialise in a healthier smoke-free environment.

The olive branch to cafe owners was also aimed at restoring the pinball machines and table-football tables that once sat in the corner of cafes, tobacconists and bars. "It's so expensive ... that little by little, the games have disappeared," Mr Cope said.

In 1999, there were 250,000 "traditional games" in cafes, but the number today has halved. The games machine industry is ailing while around 40,000 machines gather dust in storage after cafe owners who could not afford the charges sent them back. Mr Copé hoped increasing demand for games would create 600 new jobs, many for machine repairmen and maintenance staff.

José Hody, president of the French Confederation of Automated Game Operators, said over the past two years, four games machines businesses had closed every week as bars and cafes returned their machines. He described the tax break as a "breath of oxygen".

France's smoking ban begins in February 2007 for most public buildings, but restaurants, clubs, bars and cafes will have until January 2008 to comply.