French press review
On the front page: hot ahead!
Audio 04:18
An "exceptional heat episode" is raging in France in May, indicates Météo-France.
REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol
By: Frédéric Couteau Follow
4 mins
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“
But what is this month of May?
exclaims
Le Parisien
.
“
Just a week ago, on the eve of the Ice Saints, the mercury was racing in Bordeaux, climbing for the first time this year to 30 degrees.
An event on a local scale which was in fact only a taste of the scorching heat which is currently falling on France.
Particularly in the Southwest, where peaks of 35 degrees are expected by the end of the week.
(…)
This month of May could be the hottest ever recorded in France
”, notes
Le Parisien.
Explanation put forward by meteorologist Guillaume Séchet, still in
Le Parisien
: this heat wave is due to “
atmospheric pressure anomalies since 2015, which have the effect of pushing the Azores anticyclone much further north in Europe.
This has the effect of calmer and drier weather in France, which is increasingly experiencing subtropical weather.
(…)
In the future, we will have to get used to springs as torrid as the one we know today.
»
Same analysis for another meteorologist, interviewed by
Le Figaro
: “
the heat dome is not a rare situation, several have already occurred in Europe, but that it occurs in the middle of May is surprising,
affirms Pascal Scaviner, head of the weather forecast service at La Chaîne Météo.
He believes that such climate variability is part of global warming, and he regretfully predicts that such heat domes will be more frequent in the future.
»
Ecological emergency!
We are therefore in the presence of a case, one could not be more concrete, of global warming… As a result, the ecological question is even more present and pressing in the political debate.
"
Climate change: it's urgent, a little, a lot
...", exclaims
Liberation
on the front page, with this photo of Élisabeth Borne, the Prime Minister, surrounded by a circle of daisies against a backdrop of an Alpine landscape with a wind turbine on the side…
“
No time to wait
, launches
Liberation
.
Not wanting to let Elisabeth Borne settle in the hell of Matignon, this washing machine where sometimes everything changes so that nothing changes.
But that must change.
The climate emergency puts on the shoulders of the new Prime Minister a pressure that goes beyond the traditional arbitrations between ministries, which she will also have to take on a daily basis.
We are talking about a course, a project that encompasses almost everything, a change of software that finally puts the country, its economic actors, its major state bodies, its administrations, its intermediary bodies, its elected officials throughout the territory, its associations, its youth, its population moving towards a real ecological transition.
(…)
It is (…) at this turning point that the new executive couple is expected, especially by young people. This in no way means relegating other projects, particularly social ones, to the background. But rather to have the conviction that solving the evils that plague this country goes through this ecological revolution. Of course, this will take time. In order not to lose more, Emmanuel Macron and Élisabeth Borne must be convinced that there is no (…) alternative. Are they really?
»
Iraq on the way to desertification!
And it's not just in France that there is urgency, of course.
The warming phenomenon is global… India and Pakistan have been experiencing heat waves for the past few days, with more than 40 degrees.
And in Iraq, repeated sandstorms darken the country, notes
Le Monde
.
Formerly a breadbasket, Iraq risks becoming a desert in a few years.
"
In the next two decades, Iraq could face
'272 days of dust'
a year," an Environment Ministry official recently warned.
(…)
Ranked among the five countries in the world most vulnerable to climate change, Iraq is not prepared to face it, with potentially disastrous social and economic consequences.
(…)
Desertification already affects 39% of the country's surface, points out the evening daily, and it loses around 100 square kilometers of arable land each year
.
(…)
Faced with the proliferation of sandstorms, and the disappearance of bodies of water like Lake Sawa in April, a timid awareness is emerging at the top of the state,
still notes
Le Monde.
An emergency meeting was convened on May 10, in the Council of Ministers, with the presence of experts.
The government has released a budget of nearly three million dollars for projects to combat desertification.
“A drop of water in the desert…
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