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WEATHER

South of France on high alert for early autumn storms

The south of France is on a heightened weather alert for storms and flash-floods on Friday.

Published: 2 September 2022 15:54 CEST
Updated: 2 September 2022 16:55 CEST
South of France on high alert for early autumn storms
(Photo: Pascal Guyot / AFP)

In its mid-afternoon update Météo-France placed Alpes-de-Haute-Provence on orange alert – the second highest weather warning level – for storms on Friday afternoon, joining the Var, Gard, Vaucluse and Bouches-du-Rhône.

The first slow-moving thunderstorms are in place over the east of the Var, according to Météo-France, while a “very active line of thunderstorms” is approaching the Cévennes in the Gard.

Storms will continue to develop along the Mediterranean arc overnight, bringing hail, high winds and torrential rainfall, which – because the storm cells are moving very slowly – could cause flash flooding in places as water runs off parched ground.

Neighbouring departments currently on yellow storm vigilance, meanwhile, are warned that locally violent storm cells cannot be excluded.

READ ALSO Violent storms and floods forecast for south of France this autumn

Floods watchdog Vigicrues, meanwhile, has upped its flood alert on river stretches in the south of the country to yellow.

Image: Vigicrues

Looking further ahead, Meteo-France’s meteorologists are watching tropical storm Danielle, which is developing out in the Atlantic, further north than is usual at this time of year. According to some early modelling, the storm could reach Europe around Saturday, September 11th.

Forecasters point out that, this far out, weather modelling is not always accurate, so they are waiting to see how the storm develops before 

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ENVIRONMENT

The guardian angels of the source of the Seine

The river Seine, the centrepiece of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony in July, starts with a few drops of water in a mossy grotto deep in the woods of central France.

Published: 25 April 2024 09:43 CEST
The guardian angels of the source of the Seine

And not a day goes by without Jacques and Marie-Jeanne Fournier going to check the source only a few paces from their door.

“I go there at least three times a day. It’s part of me,” 74-year-old Marie-Jeanne told AFP.

Her parents were once the guardians of the source, and now that unofficial mantle has fallen on her and husband Jacques.

Barely 60 souls live in the village of Source-Seine in the wooded hills north of Dijon.

By the time the tiny stream has reached the French capital 300 kilometres away it has become a mighty river 200 metres wide.

But some mornings barely a few damp traces are visible at the source beneath the swirling dragonflies. If you scratch about a bit in the grass, however, a small stream quickly forms.

The source — one of two spots where the river officially starts — bubbles up through the remains of an ancient Gallo-Roman temple built about 2,000 years ago, said Jacques Fournier, 73.

Celtic goddess

But you could easily miss this small out-of-the-way valley. There are few signs to direct tourists to the statue of the goddess Sequana, the Celtic deity who gave her name to the river.

In the mid-19th century Napoleon III had a grotto and cave built “where the source was captured to honour the city of Paris and Sequana,” said Marie-Jeanne Fournier.

Her parents moved into a house next to the grotto and its reclining nymph in the early 1950s when she was four years old.

Her father Paul Lamarche was later appointed its caretaker and would regularly welcome visitors. A small stone bridge over the Seine while it is still a stream is named after him.

“Like most children in the village in the 1960s,” Fournier learned to swim in a natural pool in the river just downstream from her home.

“It was part of my identity,” said Fournier, who has lived all her life close to rivers. She retired back to Source-Seine to run a guesthouse because “the Seine is a part of my parents’ legacy”.

The Olympic flame is due to be carried past the site on July 12th on its way to Paris.

The couple will be there to greet it, but as members of the Sources of the Seine Association, they are worried how long the river will continue to rise near their home.

Every year the grotto has become drier and drier as climate change hits the region, where some of France’s finest Burgundy wines are produced.

“My fear is that the (historic) source of the Seine will disappear,” said Marie-Jeanne Fournier. “Perhaps the source will be further downstream in a few years.”

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