As Europe faces unprecedented droughts and heatwaves, French President Emmanuel Macron warned the country was facing a “tipping point” with “a series of crises each more serious than the other”.
“I believe that we are in the process of living through a tipping point or great upheaval. Firstly because we are living through what could seem like the end of abundance,” the French president said during a cabinet meeting.
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Last week French authorities warned of flash floods after rainstorm ripped through large parts of the country. Officials raised red alerts in several areas along the Mediterranean coast and around the southeastern city of Lyon including Normandy as heavy storms led to waterlogging.
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France has faced extreme weather this summer with heat and drought as the country recorded the driest month since 1961 in July. The country was also hit with heatwaves and several forest fires. The southern Aveyron region experienced raging fires as several people were evacuated.
“This overview that I’m giving the end of abundance, the end of insouciance, the end of assumptions – it’s ultimately a tipping point that we are going through that can lead our citizens to feel a lot of anxiety,” Macron said, adding,”Faced with this, we have duties, the first of which is to speak frankly and very clearly, without doom-mongering.”
Reports claim at least twenty fires had broken out in the seaside resort of Soulac-sur-Mer in southwest France with large areas destroyed as authorities tracked the fires by air and land.
Reports said 6,200 hectares of forest burned down in just 24 hours which was later brought under control as firefighters planes and helicopters were pressed into service.
(With inputs from Agencies)
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