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DROUGHT

Hundreds of French communes named as ‘natural disaster zones’ for drought

More than 1,000 French communes have been designated 'natural disaster zones' due to drought.

Published: 12 September 2023 10:48 CEST
Hundreds of French communes named as 'natural disaster zones' for drought
Traces of bird's feet are seen on cracks are seen on a dry part of the bed of the Loire river in 2020 (Photo by Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS / AFP)

France’s Journal Officiel published a decree on Friday designating 1,022 communes across the country as ‘natural disaster zones’, namely drought, based on information from 2021 and 2022.

Qualifying as a natural disaster zone allows people living in the area to claim specific financial assistance from insurers, and to have their claim dealt with more quickly. The objective is to allow people to be adequately compensated for damage to their property. 

Areas affected by events such as storms, mudslides and flooding are often designated natural disaster zones, but drought has become a more common reason for qualifying for the status.

The 1,022 communes are mostly in the south of the country, although more than half (59) of France’s mainland départements have at least one natural disaster zone.

Five départements came out on top for having the most ‘natural disaster zones’ for drought. They were: Jura with 164 communes, Indre-et-Loire with 133, Charente-Maritime with 86, Gironde with 65 and Dordogne with 54.

You can find the total list of communes under ‘natural disaster status’ here.

READ MORE: What does a state of ‘natural disaster’ mean in France?

When it comes to drought-induced damage, this typically involves soil shrinkage (via the ‘shrink-swell phenomenon’) which can lead to cracks both in the interior and exterior walls of a building or home, as well as in chimneys or tiles. 

According to AFP estimates, more than 10 million French homes are at risk of cracking in the event of severe drought. 

With drought having become more common and long-lasting in France in recent years, French insurers have noted an uptick in drought-related claims.

The country’s insurers’ federation, France Assureurs, told Ouest France that they estimated the total cost of drought damage to French single-family homes in 2022 was €2.5 billion, a record high since France first invented the natural disaster status in 1982. 

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CLIMATE CRISIS

Rising sea levels threaten Normandy’s historic D-Day beaches

As France prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, erosion and rising sea levels are threatening to strip away what remains of the physical history of the Allied invasion of Europe

Published: 7 May 2024 14:47 CEST
Rising sea levels threaten Normandy's historic D-Day beaches

From Ouistreham (Calvados) to Ravenoville (Manche), the Normandy coastline is littered with relics of June 1944. The Normandy tourism office lists more than 90 official D-Day sites, including 44 museums, drawing millions of visitors every year.

But the sea from where liberation came is now threatening to reclaim its heritage: cliffs and dunes are subject to erosion, while marshes and reclaimed land are at risk of being submerged.

The landscapes today of the famed beaches are nothing like the ones codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, that the Allied forces endured in 1944, an official for the Conservatoire du Littoral in Normandy told AFP. 

The Gold Beach marshes in Ver-sur-Mer, “will be transformed in 10 years or so,” he added, as sea water rises to reclaim land that had been drained in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Mayor of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont and director of the Utah Beach Museum Charles de Vallavieille told Ouest France that  “we don’t have the right to do anything” to stop the advance of the sea. “The law protects dykes but not dunes,” he said. “We can’t get any help even though it’s a problem that affects the whole coast – protect one place and the water will go elsewhere”.

Pedestrians walk past remains of the British Artificial harbour at “Gold Beach”. (Photo by Lou BENOIST / AFP)

Between the American and British sectors, the Bessin cliffs – where German artillery batteries pummelled the beaches from hard-to-reach areas such as Pointe du Hoc – have been slowly falling to wave impacts, sea salt, freezes and thaws in the decades since 200 American rangers overran the occupying soldiers there. 

In 2010, the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), which manages the site, spent $6million to protect it. It “secured the area, [and] consolidated 70 metres […] with reinforced concrete walls, micropiles to stabilise the soil and a complex network of sensors monitoring the subsoil for any significant movement”.

Coastal pathways in the area have been “set back 20 metres” to ensure public safety, the ABMC has said.

But with sea levels rising a few millimetres a year, inexorably and inevitably changing the face of the coastline, nature is reclaiming the beaches of Normandy, and their blood-stained human history will become a matter of historical interpretation, rather physical fact.

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