Huge wildfires in Gironde, in the Landes and in the Var. Repeated heatwaves across the country. A severe drought seriously affecting agriculture. This summer, France has been severely tested by the elements.
Last winter, the country had already experienced several months marked by a series of weather fronts and storms (Goretti, Ingrid, Nils, Pedro), triggering major flooding across mainland France.
With only a few months to go before the next presidential election, environmental issues are set to take an unprecedented place in the political debate. Historically championed by the left, the topic has become unavoidable, forcing the right and the far right to engage with it.
Because today, "given the delays and the seriousness of the situation, France no longer has a choice: it has to adapt, and quickly", warns the NGO Réseau Action Climat, which criticises the record of successive governments that, it says, "have not taken the necessary measures to adapt the country to the effects of climate change".
Yet warnings have been issued for several years. As early as 2013, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) stated that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal and, since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia".
