After thirty-two days without rain, a record for a winter since 1959, France is on "alert" due to low groundwater levels. The government claims to be hard at work to "anticipate" and "plan" the necessary measures to limit the effects of this exceptional winter drought, as the Minister for Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, reaffirms in an interview with Sunday newspaper, February 26. Addressing the "prefects who coordinate the seven major basins of the territory" whom he receives Monday at his ministry before "all the prefects of France" the following Monday, the minister affirms that he will "every time have the same message" to address them: "Anticipate! Take the steps that save water now.”
Mr. Béchu recalls that the country had not experienced such a lack of precipitation over this period since the start of rainfall measurements by Météo-France and that it was already affected by an episode of severe drought in the summer of 2022. What makes according to him "the situation is more serious than last year at the same time" on the whole territory and that "we are therefore in anticipation, already in a state of alert".
"As of the first half of March, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, will activate an interministerial unit responsible for anticipating the risks and measures to be taken in the event of drought, mobilizing all the State services concerned," says Christophe. Béchu, the day after Emmanuel Macron announced the launch of a "sobriety plan on the water". "The first answer is sobriety and innovation," summarizes the minister.
Towards "a sobriety plan on the water"
The day before this interview with the Minister for Ecological Transition, it was the Head of State himself who stepped up to the plate on the subject, calling from the aisles of the Agricultural Show to apply "a sobriety plan on water" on the model of "energy sobriety", to "save water collectively".
"We know that we will be confronted, as we were last summer, with problems of scarcity [of water]: rather than organizing under duress at the last moment with conflicts of use , we have to plan all of this", explained Emmanuel Macron, pleading for "better harvesting of rainwater", "to have fewer leaks in the water networks" and "better distribute the use of drinking water according to users", in particular by "continuing to produce and invest in hillside retention".
Currently "four departments are experiencing restrictions [on water use and are placed on drought alert]: Isère, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var and Pyrénées-Orientales" while "ten other departments are under surveillance, "says Christophe Béchu on Sunday.
