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Euronews
4 days ago
- Climate
- Euronews
Climate change drove ‘unprecedented' wildfire in France, officials say
A wildfire burning in the south of France has grown to become the country's biggest since 1949. It has claimed one life and burned more than 16,000 hectares - an area one and a half times the size of Paris - in the south of France. French Prime Minister François Bayrou described it as a 'catastrophe of unprecedented scale'. The blaze, which began on Tuesday afternoon near the village of Ribaute in the Aude region near the border with Spain and not far from the Mediterranean Sea, has been raging for three days. In the first 12 hours of the fire, it spread across 11,000 hectares of land - an area roughly equivalent to the size of Paris. Within 24 hours, it had destroyed the same amount of land as wildfires usually burn across France in a year. Now it has burned more than 16,000 hectares to become the biggest fire since the creation of France's national fire database in 2006, the national emergency management service has said. Images shared by Météo-France show that the smoke plume from the blaze is visible from space. France's largest fire in over 70 years The fire spread quickly due to strong winds, dry vegetation and hot summer weather, officials have said. 'The night was cooler, so the fire is spreading more slowly but it remains the most significant fire France has seen since 1949,' France's minister for ecological transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, told France Info radio. 'It is a fire that is clearly a consequence of climate change and drought in this region.' Michael Sabot, deputy director of the Aude fire department, told France's BFM-TV that 'unfavourable weather conditions' meant the blaze 'certainly' wouldn't be brought under control on Thursday. Forecast high temperatures and strong, more than 40km per hour winds would further dry out vegetation, he said. After a cooler start to the week, Météo-France has forecast intensifying heat in the south with temperatures of up to 40°C and a high risk of wildfires. While current weather conditions play a role, prolonged dry weather has also increased the fire risk. Mediterranean regions of the country are experiencing significant drought, meaning vegetation and trees are highly susceptible to fires, Météo-France says. It adds that recently, even tall trees have been affected, allowing for very intense fires - a sign of just how severe this drought is. The Aude region in particular has been facing water use restrictions due to a 'drought crisis' since 1 August, with a lack of rainfall in recent months playing 'a major role in the spreading of the fire', according to the environment ministry. It adds that in the neighbouring Pyrénées-Orientales, rainfall has reduced by around 60 per cent since 2022. An investigation into the exact cause of the fire is ongoing. Is climate change fuelling wildfires in the Mediterranean? This year has so far brought an extremely active and damaging fire season in Europe. Monitoring from the European Forest Fire Information System shows that wildfires have burned 353,862 hectares of land since the beginning of 2025 - more than twice the area burned during the same period last year. Hotspots across the Mediterranean have been scorched this summer, stoked by heatwaves and drought. Southern Europe has seen multiple large fires, with scientists warning that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness, making the region more vulnerable to fires. According to European Drought Observatory data, more than half of Europe, including the Mediterranean, experienced the worst drought conditions in the first part of July since monitoring began in 2021. Scientists have warned that climate change is making droughts worse and changing rainfall patterns in Europe. Where regions like the Mediterranean would previously have had a chance to recover, balance or prepare for a lack of water in summer in wetter seasons, they can no longer depend on rainfall in the same way.
LeMonde
26-05-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
Former French PM faces backlash over proposal to ban headscarves for children
Former French prime minister Gabriel Attal faces backlash from across the board after calling to ban Muslim headscarves for children under 15. Seeking media attention and to show "firmness" on state authority issues, Attal outlined his proposal on Tuesday, May 20, the day before a Defense Council meeting about a report on the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islamism in France. He also called for the creation of a "misdemeanor of coercion to wear a headscarf" to punish parents. His statements drew criticism from the left, the right and even from within his own party. His predecessor as prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, voiced her "deepest doubts about the constitutionality" and the "applicability" of the measure, speaking on Sunday to the news channel BFM-TV. "Can we really imagine police officers stopping and fining little girls?" she asked. While she argued that "in the face of a serious threat (...) no option should be off the table," Borne, now the education minister, advised "working to propose rigorous, constitutionally sound, and applicable measures." Marc Fesneau, the second-in-command of centrist Prime Minister François Bayrou's MoDem party, expressed concern about "an escalating one-upmanship" on matters of state authority within President Emmanuel Macron's coalition. "Within the 'central bloc,' we are now advocating the rhetoric, the ideas, the proposals of the right, or even the far right. But that is not what the center is about! That is not the adventure we wanted to build with Emmanuel Macron in 2017," said Fesneau, in the newspaper . "The original promise was one of moderation, unity, and reconciliation," he said.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Macron announces Franco-British mission to Ukraine to work on strengthening Ukraine's military
President Emmanuel Macron has announced that a Franco-British mission will travel to Ukraine to work on strengthening Ukraine's defence forces. Source: BFM-TV, a French news broadcast television and radio network, citing Macron at a press conference following the coalition of the willing summit in Paris on 27 March, as reported by European Pravda Details: Macron stated that a Franco-British team would be sent to Ukraine to "prepare the Ukrainian army of tomorrow". He added that work is continuing on the potential deployment of so-called "deterrent forces" in Ukraine – troops that could serve as a deterrent in the event of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. Macron noted that such forces could come from "certain EU member states" and be stationed in "certain strategic locations" in Ukraine. Background: Earlier, reports suggested that France has acknowledged the possibility of deploying European peacekeeping forces in Ukraine, stationed away from the front line, with one proposed option being along the Dnipro River. The coalition of the willing, led by France and the UK, has been working for several weeks on a plan to send thousands of troops to Ukraine to help guarantee a future ceasefire. Sources in European diplomatic circles told Reuters that there is growing scepticism in Europe about the feasibility of the plan due to logistical challenges, troop shortages, resistance from Russia and the lack of US security guarantees. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
