Paris ? Non-smokers reveled. Some smokers grumbled. But others pondered kicking the habit as France’s smoking ban went into effect Tuesday with the start of the new year.

Owners of bars, restaurants, nightclubs and cafes, where smoking is now prohibited, worried it would be bad for business.

Newly hung no-smoking signs dotted the entrance and walls of the Cafe Elysees, off Paris’ celebrated Champs-Elysees avenue, and staffers bundled up against the cold for sidewalk smoke breaks. Client Pierre Morgon, 22, praised the ban, saying the cafe’s clean air allowed him to better appreciate the food.

“Today’s filet mignon tastes richer than it did yesterday,” the Cafe Elysees regular said with a sly smile.

Morgon, a smoker, said the restrictions would also help motivate him to quit: “There’s no way I’ll be able to put it off anymore.”

Others saw the ban as attack on their rights. Jean-Pierre Aiglement, a 55-year-old waiter at the Cafe Au Depart in northern Paris, vowed not to be “chased out onto the pavement” by the “stupid law.”

“I’ll smoke where I please,” he said, lighting a cigarette with his morning coffee.

Eight states in neighboring Germany also launched restrictions on smoking in bars and restaurants, though the measures were generally more flexible than in France.

Under France’s ban, those caught lighting up inside face a $93 fine, while owners who turn a blind eye to smoking in their establishments face a $198 fine.

Restaurateurs and cafe personnel say the ban forces them to police their clients, and insist it will slice into their revenues.

Loic Chardonnay, a 22-year-old waiter at the Cafe Elysees, said he expected business to slow down for several months.

“But it’ll pick up once we French get used to it,” he predicted, pointing to the success of recent smoking bans in Spain and Italy.

About a quarter of France’s 60 million people smoke. The Health Ministry said one in two regular smokers – or some 66,000 people annually – dies of smoking-related illness here, and about 5,000 nonsmokers die each year from second-hand smoke.

Last year saw the reinforcement of a long-standing prohibition on smoking in France’s workplaces, schools, airports, hospitals and other “closed and covered” public places such as train stations. Restaurants and other so-called places of conviviality were given an extra 11 months to adapt to the new rules, which allow smoking only inside special sealed chambers.

Restaurateurs have decried the chambers, which they say are prohibitively expensive.