Antitobacco activists turned the tables on a populist party in Austria’s ruling coalition by submitting more than half a million signatures against a reinstated law that allows smoking in bars and restaurants.

The referendum bid puts the Freedom Party in a bind after it joined Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s government last year pledging to defend smokers’ rights and expand the use of popular votes. The activists want to overturn a parliamentary vote in March that restored smoking areas.

No one in the hospitality industry “can understand why foreign visitors have to accept spending their vacation in the ashtray of Europe,’’ Paul Sevelda, head of Cancer Aid Austria, said in a statement by the Don’t Smoke campaign.

Led by Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, a passionate smoker, the Freedom Party presented its stance in last year’s Austrian election as a triumph for citizens’ free choice. He also pledged to push for any legislation to be put to a referendum if 900,000 voters, or 15 percent of the electorate, petition Parliament against it.

Initiators of the antismoking campaign expect to reach 900,000 by the fall.

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