Late last month, I went to Austria to do some reporting on the-far right Freedom Party (FPÖ) and its role in the new Austrian government. (Back in December, the FPÖ became the junior coalition partner for the center-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), led by Sebastian Kurz.)

What I came away with was a story about the controversy over a proposed smoking ban in Austrian restaurants and coffeehouses, which was slated to take effect in May but which the FPÖ insisted (as a condition of their participation in the government) be thrown out. A resulting petition, started by doctors and cancer prevention organizations but embraced by opposition parties, has garnered more than half a million signatures and serves as perhaps the main way people are registering their displeasure at the FPÖ in government.

Every person I talked to pointed out that smoking in restaurants is a quirk of Austrian culture that outsiders can’t fully grasp: “In Austria, the question of smoking in restaurants can quickly get very emotional,” one person told me (as we met in a cafe, surrounded by a cloud of smoke). In fact, “Viennese coffeehouse culture” was added to UNESCO’s list of “intangible cultural heritage” back in 2011.

You can read the piece here, on Politico Europe. (And below, enjoy photographic proof that I fully sampled Austria’s restaurant and coffeehouse culture…)