Faced with the worst droughts since 1959, farmers in the Catalan region of southwest France turned to their patron Saint-Gaudérique on Saturday to help bring on the rains, carrying the saint's relics through the streets of Perpignan.
Some 1,000 people – clergy, farmers, religious brotherhoods and locals – took part in Saturday's procession, reviving an old Catholic ritual for the first time in 150 years.
They carried a reliquary bust and the bones of Saint-Gauderique from the Saint Jean-Baptiste Cathedral, where they are kept, through to the river Tet.
Its water levels, like all the rivers in the region, are now worryingly low after months of winter drought.
“At one point the situation gets so critical we bring out every saint possible, we call on everyone”, farmer Julien Bousquet said as he marched through the town.
The Pyrénées-Orientales department is experiencing its worst drought since 1959 and groundwater levels are very low in 80 per cent of the region, the French Bureau of Geological and Mineral Research (BRGM) said last week.
“It’s very worrying, but we have hope. We must pray, we will have water,” said 50-year-old winegrower Damien de Besombes.
Reviving the tradition
Saint-Gaudérique (Galdéric in Catalan), a 9th-century labourer from the region, is venerated in the Catholic church as the patron of farmers. He is believed to have worked miracles – bringing rain in times of drought, dry weather in times of flooding.
He was one of the “most famous and admired” Catalan saints and was “traditionally called upon for water problems,” Benoit de Roeck, archpriest of Perpignan cathedral, told AFP news agency.
The first trace of the ritual dates back to 1014.
Between the 11th and 19th centuries, "800 processions were held in his honour in the region", said historian Jean-Luc Antonizazzi.
While Saint-Gaudérique's day is still marked on 16 October, the advent of industrialisation put paid to the ritual and it hasn't been practised for some 150 years, Roeck said.
Farmer Charles Puig, a Catholic, and town councillor with the far-right National Rally (RN) party, decided it was time for a revival.
“When I saw the very low level of lake Vinça in early February I decided to contact the bishop to bring back the Saint-Gaudérique tradition,” he told Le Monde daily.
Historian Jean-Luc Antoniazzi, who is also in charge of episcopal relations within Perpignan city council, maintained the procession was "purely religious" and not political.
However Agnès Langevine, the regional council's vice-president in charge of ecology, said she regretted “calling on the divine, when political solutions exist”.
What's more, Perpignan's far-right mayor Louis Alliot, has everything to gain from such a procession, she said.
“After the return of the Saint-Jean coat of arms on city hall logos, the multiplication of traditional mass, Alliot is rubbing his hands with glee over this."
'Breaking point'
Whatever the motives behind the procession, farmers are getting increasingly desperate.
“We’ll cling on to anything now,” said market gardener André Trives, describing the situation as “catastrophic”.
“We know reserves won’t be replenished before April-May […] so by 15 August there’ll be no more water.”
Since October, the Pyrenees-Orientales department has recorded just 159.4mm of rain – a deficit of more than 60 percent compared to seasonal averages, according to France’s weather office Meteo-France.
The prefecture has imposed heavy water restrictions in anticipation of summer drought. But some farmers are outraged over what they see as lack of control.
"Farmers can no longer manage their water, technocrats and a host of state departments do that," raged Gérard Majoral, a farmer and member of the chamber of agriculture.
“We were the first to economise water ressources and now we’re being stopped from irrigating. The profession is at breaking point,” he told Le Monde.
And the rains came
Shortly after Saturday's ceremony ended, the skies opened, just as the weather office had forecast.
Midi Libre online reported that 36.8mm of rain had fallen in 24 hours, the equivalent of three weeks of the seasonal average.
Manna from heaven, perhaps, but nowhere near enough to be able to penetrate ground hardened by ongoing drought.
“It needs to rain for weeks on end for it to seep into the ground and recharge groundwater reserves” said Julien Bousquet.
