The Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu, who brought together the basin coordinating prefects on Monday evening to discuss the unprecedented winter drought in France, called on them to issue water restriction orders “from now on” to anticipate possible situations of crisis during the summer. The Minister invited these prefects, who drive state policy in terms of water management, “not to have a shaking hand to issue decrees”, saying he was “alarmed” by the deficit of water in the soil.
Last summer, “we had up to 700 municipalities affected by drinking water problems. If we don’t take measures upstream, we run the risk of having an even higher figure next summer and over larger territories “with larger agglomerations concerned, he warned. France has been suffering from an unprecedented drought for several weeks, following a year 2022 that was already particularly poor in rainfall. Over the last 18 months, 15 have been loss-making.
