My garden in Lyon, southeast France, doesn’t smell like grass any more; it smells like hay, dried out from heatwave upon heatwave. The country as a whole experienced 45 per cent less rainfall than in a typical month of June, with the department of Indre, Centre-Val de Loire, recording the driest June since records began. When I caught the train from Paris to Lyon last week, a 260-mile journey that usually goes through lush green countryside, what I saw from the window was rather a patchwork of 50 shades of yellow.
As of July 15th, 99 French departments have some form of water ban, with 43 of those placed in “crisis”, the highest level of restrictions. Environment Minister Monique Barbut described the droughts as being “exceptionally early” and “exceptionally intense.”
