Fires in France: a new reality to which we are still only just adapting

An impressive yellow smoke materialized at the gates of Marseille on Tuesday afternoon, stopping trains and planes, confining the city. The day before, a fire began near Narbonne , spreading at an unprecedented speed. The fire season, which had already begun, has reached a worrying scale. Each year, these fires become more virulent, harder to control, with factors that add to the difficulty. The elements collide. The wind fanned these flames, born on land made arid by an acute drought. This was collateral damage from the heatwave that brought France to a virtual standstill early last week.

The phenomenon is affecting all of Europe. Germany, Turkey, and Greece have already experienced massive fires in recent days. Every year, the continent sees an increase in the area burned by forest fires, with their recurrence becoming increasingly common. We have entered a new reality to which we are still barely adapting. Experts are clear: the increase in heat waves and their growing intensity, caused by global warming, will make these extreme weather events increasingly violent. Meanwhile, politicians are still dithering over the construction of new highways and passing laws like the catastrophic Duplomb law —adopted this Tuesday by the National Assembly—which mark major setbacks on environmental issues. At the European level, the legislative report on the EU's 2040 greenhouse gas emission reduction target will be championed by the far right, to the despair of environmentalists. It is therefore the Patriots group, chaired by Jordan Bardella , which will have control of the discussions on this key text, and a platform to continue to castigate "punitive ecology." But it is not ecology that is collectively punishing us, it is the planet.