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WEATHER

September temperature records broken in France amid new heatwave

Much of the foliage in France is already looking distinctly autumnal, but another heatwave is forecast for this week, with some areas reaching 39C and 40C.

Published: 12 September 2022 10:31 CEST
Updated: 12 September 2022 17:04 CEST
September temperature records broken in France amid new heatwave
A worker drinks water in a construction site in Savenay, outside Nantes, during a French heatwave. Photo by Loic VENANCE / AFP

After a cooler few weeks with temperatures dropping significantly at night, France is predicted to return to summer heat this week, with Météo France predicting temperatures of up to 39C in the south west.

Fears that Hurricane Danielle would hit Europe have proved unfounded, with the storm dispersing and instead turning into a simple low-pressure system that will bring warm weather up from North Africa. 

The hot weather began on Sunday in the south west, where Biarritz reached 31.5C and the region saw temperatures of up to 39C on Monday. 

Elsewhere in France temperatures were predicted to be 24C-30C in northern and central France and 29C-34C along the Mediterranean coast.

By mid-afternoon on Monday, over a hundred communes located mostly in the southwest and central France broke heat records for the month of September. 

Pau, located in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département recorded 37.4C, exceeding its previous record of 36.3C from 1970. Several communes saw temperatures of higher than 35C. 

In Landes, the Bégaar weather station recorded temperatures of higher than 40C in the afternoon.

The hot weather is predicted to last until the middle of the week, when it will cool slightly, and there may be storms on some areas.

Many areas in France remain on drought alert with water restrictions in place.

MAP: Where in France are there water restrictions and what do they mean?

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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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