Smoking is bad... but no problem in Indonesia, says Catherine Deneuve

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2004

JAKARTA (AFP) — French film icon Catherine Deneuve, who once quit cigarettes to preserve her famed beauty, feels guilty her on-screen habit encourages others to smoke, but could not resist the lure of nicotine during a visit to Indonesia.

"I feel very responsible," the 61-year-old Oscar-nominated star of "Indochine", "Belle de Jour" and "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" told reporters in Jakarta where she was promoting her recent film, "Nearest to Heaven".

"I try not to smoke so much on TV and in public, I know in Indonesia people smoke so I feel less... But anyway I have tried to slow down smoking and I cannot really stop yet," she said.

"I stopped for 12 years, then I went back on it," she added, cigarette in hand.

Some 70 percent of Indonesia's 223 million...