PARIS (Reuters) – France is on a “state of alert” in the face of drought and “soft” restriction measures are being considered from March to avoid a “catastrophic” situation this summer, the Minister of Health said on Wednesday. Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu.
“We are on the basis of the driest winter since 1959”, he said on franceinfo while Météo France reported on Tuesday an episode without rain of 31 days.
A drought anticipation committee is due to meet on Thursday before, on Monday, a meeting of all the basin coordinator prefects to examine the situation territory by territory, said Christophe Béchu.
“As of Monday, the point that we will make with the prefects will be that each of them, at the scale of the basin in which they are, take stock with all the prefects of the department so that we can take restrictive measures which are ‘soft’ if I dare say from the month of March to avoid finding ourselves in catastrophic arbitration situations when we approach the month of June and the month of July”, declared the minister.
Currently, 87 municipalities in the Var department are already subject to restrictions on the possibilities of watering and “from now on the question of filling swimming pools (…) is likely to be subject to restrictions on a certain number of territories,” said Christophe Béchu.
(Written by Blandine Hénault)
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