Au revoir, film icon Yves Montand, with your Gauloise cigarette drooping from the corner of your mouth. Smoking in France will soon have a new image: grotesquely diseased lungs, displayed in full-color photographs plastered all over cigarette packets.

Elsewhere in Europe, where smoking has long been tolerated, the mood is also changing. Ireland, Holland, and Norway will introduce blanket bans on smoking in the workplace next year. Tobacco advertising everywhere is to be largely outlawed. The European Union is studying plans for a Continent-wide, New York-style ban on smoking in bars and restaurants.

After decades of relative inaction, "things are coming to a head," because of growing awareness of the high human and economic costs of smoking, says Sophie Kazan, of the European Network for Smoking Prevention. "It's time."

France, where smoky cafes have long defined the country's image (and ruined many patrons' enjoyment of their croissants), took a bold step this week to dissuade the 32 percent of adults who still smoke: it raised tobacco taxes by 20 percent. A one-day strike by tobacconists fearful for their future did not deter the government from announcing another 20 percent tax hike next January, as part of the "war on tobacco" that President Jacques Chirac declared last March.

Mr. Chirac has made cancer reduction one of the top three goals of his mandate, which makes "the struggle against tobacco a necessity, an absolute priority," he said.

A hard-hitting radio campaign has been launched, encouraging smokers to quit. A law banning cigarette sales to people under 16 was passed earlier this year, 'kiddie-packs' of 10 have been outlawed, and a regular pack will cost more than $5 next January, more than anywhere else in Europe except Britain.

Pricing cigarettes out of smokers' reach has helped many break the habit in Britain, experts say: Half the population smoked 30 years ago, but only a quarter do today, partly because cigarette taxes rose 55 percent between 1992 and 1998.

That policy, however, has also increased the sales of smuggled or counterfeit cigarettes, say tobacco industry officials. "If you make cigarettes very expensive, obviously people will stop or smoke less," says Chris Proctor, head of Science and Regulation at British American Tobacco. "But the bigger effect is to boost illegal sales."

The British government's chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, recommended last July that the government ban smoking in all public places, to protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke.

Though the British authorities have so far shied away from such a move, preferring to persuade bar and restaurant owners to improve ventilation and expand no-smoking areas, Norway has taken the plunge. In an act of compassion, however, it postponed implementation until next spring so as not to force smokers to go outside in sub-zero temperatures.

In more temperate Ireland, smoking will be forbidden in all workplaces, including pubs, bars, and restaurants as of Jan. 1.

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