(Editorial) “When the wind returns”, by Samuel Lieven

Does nostalgia have refreshing virtues? Not sure. Yet we remember them well, these geographical maps which, not so long ago, covered the walls of our classrooms. This sky blue and this pale green which shared almost the entirety of France, a marvel of “temperate climate” where there were, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, the whole range of mild or harsh winters, cool or hot summers, regular rains and well-ordered seasons. A France with wise nuances, as if protected from excess, where even the climate seemed to have learned moderation.

Childhood has a taste of eternity. Little Fleming from the plains copiously watered all year round, how could I have imagined a world where we would no longer make fun of the North, which it was then appropriate to flee to take refuge, when summer came, on the Côte d’Azur? We must face the facts, the temperate country of our childhood is no more. The North has become a South, the South a super-South. People are suffocating, animals and crops are suffering, crops are gaining weeks – but losing quintals – and tourists are starting to lose the South… to take refuge in the North.

When the Normandy pastures evoke, from June onwards, the grilled landscapes of Sicily at the end of August, we are overcome with astonishment. When fires now strike the entire territory, no one can no longer believe they are safe. Are we going to stay there, motionless under the blazing sun? Can announcements from leaders taken by surprise take the place of action?

To adapt, you must first name what is happening. Thus, France is becoming “Mediterraneanized”. Soon, new cards will replace the old ones in finally refreshed classrooms. Crops and forests will evolve under the combined effect of the constraints and imagination of farmers and loggers. Cities, construction, our lifestyles, work and rest hours: everything will have to change. Even the attention paid to the oldest, the youngest, the most fragile.

On the sole condition of really wanting it. This is called governing. We must not forget it when the wind returns.