Christophe Béchu takes a different position from his colleague Marc Fesneau. When the Minister of Agriculture finds himself in turmoil after his declaration of scorching temperatures “pretty normal for the summer”, his colleague from Ecology went against the grain. For him, “the temperatures we are experiencing at the moment are not normal temperatures”, but “the proof of this climate disruption which, unfortunately, is accelerating”, he declared this Tuesday July 18 on the RMC antennas.
“Climate change, a consequence of our human activities, means that we already have 5 times more heat waves on average than 30 years ago”, recalled Christophe Béchu, “and the experts say we’re going to double again between now and the middle of the century”. “With in particular a number of tropical nights (minimum temperature above 20°C, editor’s note) which absolutely does not correspond to the temperatures we had 30 years ago in France, including in the south” of the country, underlined the minister in response to a listener from Hérault who found the current weather normal.
The oppressive heat wave that crosses the west of the Mediterranean basin this week will result in temperatures of 40°C on Tuesday in Provence, Corsica and Occitanie, with seven departments on orange vigilance for Heatwave, according to forecasts from Météo- France. “We’re not necessarily going to break a lot of records in France, but it’s the fact that it’s going to stay very high for several days in a row, day and night, that’s going to have a lot of impact on people,” François explained on Monday. Gourand, Meteo-France forecaster.
“Last year, it was 33 days of heat wave that we experienced,” the minister recalled on Tuesday. In 2022, France was in mid-July in its second national heat wave. This has not yet happened in 2023, because the north of the country is relatively spared from this heat dome, even if the temperatures are well above normal for the season.
June 2023 was the second hottest month of June ever recorded in France since 1900, behind June 2003, an extraordinary summer. Outside France, the 40°C mark was largely crossed on Monday in Spain, Greece and Italy. The mercury notably exceeded 44°C in several cities in Andalusia and 43°C in Sicily. The heat peak is expected Tuesday in Sardinia, an island where the temperature could approach 48 ° C.
