Too hot, too dry, too relentlessly blue—unless clouds of ash block out the sun. Summer 2026 in France, in Spain, in Italy, even in England, and further east into Central Europe. We are not prepared. That’s an understatement. We are suffering, to lesser and greater degrees. Some have lost their homes, some have lost their lives (over 2000 heat-related deaths this summer in France, with another heat dome moving in). Pine barrens, mountain forests, open fields, gone up in smoke. Paris has lost, at least temporarily, one of its greatest assets, its power to bewitch anyone who strolls its streets or lingers along the banks of the Seine—the river smells bad, the light reflecting off its waters blinds the eye. The miasmas of Paris’s famous sewers, immortalized in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, have seeped through the cracks in the sidewalks and permeated the air.
In the countryside, even in the countryside of Normandy, known for its shady apple orchards, lush green fields, and speckled Norman cows whose milk is essential for making camembert cheese, the earth is scorched, the fields turned yellow, the apples wizened on the branch. And the beach towns along the Channel are packed. They are a last refuge as beach-lovers have been chased from Atlantic and Mediterranean beaches further south, where the danger of fire is too great. The Norman coast is not long, the beaches in many places are narrow, squeezed along a coast of crumbling palisades. Some houses too close to the cliff’s edge may not make it through the next winter. Driving rain erodes the earth. Boulders tumble to the beach below.
La douce France is not so douce these days. The French art de vivre, the French people’s talent for living in the moment and making the most of life—a warm baguette picked up fresh at the bakery in the morning, a glass of rosé wine at sunset—are at risk. La douce France has always depended on the friendly cooperation of Mother Nature and the skies, two essential ingredients to making life so pleasant here.
There are other essential ingredients besides, for the moment still in place, a sturdy national safety net, universal healthcare, good schools and universities that, by American standards, are basically free. Certainly, salaries are lower, but Americans have nothing over the French when it comes to quality of life. Where the food is so good, where there’s pretty much enough to go around, where culture and sophistication are preferred over excessive, ostentatious wealth, who needs gold and marble in the bathroom or golden trophies on the mantel piece and gold picture frames above? Surely, an unforgiveable faute de goût, an expression of bad taste. France does not admire the philistine.
Only last week, I was in Normandy in the countryside, enjoying French country living at its best in a 16th century manor house with a steep tiled roof and timbered and cob walls, made of straw and clay. Yet, I felt like I was in the South of France. All the fields were yellow, and except for the lavender that thrived in the heat and sun, the shrubs shriveled for lack of a few blessed days of rain. As we dined on the terrace, the full moon rose above the hill beyond the valley, a fiery ball against the night sky. The air was dry, and in the late evening temperatures dropped as we sipped elder cordial made by the maîtresse de maison, the lady of the house.
That moon was so beautiful, yet its red glow, in usually misty, damp Normandy, seemed a harbinger of, if not harder times, certainly, the unknown. Will la douce France become la France torride? And what will that mean for the national budget and for the burgeoning national debt? This exceptional heat is going to put some holes in the safety net.
Strangely, this morning is cool and the sky is gray. Last night when I went to bed, this was not part of today’s forecast. That why I got up early and painted the window frames of the two big windows in my living room. I just had them made over. Much cheaper than replacing windows that rise ten-feet high. In the estimate, I was promised two coats of paint and that is what I got. I decided, on the exterior side, that was not enough, so I went to the hardware store, picked up a can of paint, and did the job myself, standing on the last rung of a ladder and wondering if perhaps I’m too old for this. As I worked, the sky got dark. I checked the weather: a morning thunderstorm.
So far, it hasn’t arrived. We’re experiencing the calm before a storm that will not bring us cooler weather. It is ushering in yet another heat dome and, except for this paltry storm, no real rain in sight. Temperatures heading into the high 90’s in the shade.
I’m glad I love to read, an activity that suits itself to this kind of heat.
I suffer from an apocalyptic mindset, something I must temper at all times. I too easily anticipate the worst. What will I do when the beautiful, centuries-old forests around my home catch on fire? It has already happened to the south of Paris, in what were once the royal forests of Fontainebleau. In the 19th century, the painters of the Barbizon school set up their easels there, soaking their canvases in shades of blue and green. Today, forty miles from Paris, those forests are on fire. Fodder for my apocalyptic imagination, indeed!
I could cool off in the States, hop over to visit my family “in the Skook,” walk among the hemlocks, on peaty soil, on the banks of fast-running streams (though this weekend, I think you’re having a scorcher in PA too), except that airfares have almost doubled and these are dangerous times. The Ugly American is back in force.
Instead, I yearn for the United States, I read about the United States, I keep my finger on the pulse of the United States, overdosing on the news and often receiving it (like news of the confirmation of Todd Blanche as Attorney General of the United States yesterday morning) when most Americans are still in bed. Pennsylvania senator Dave McCormick voted yea to confirm Blanche, a lawyer ready to cover up for the powerful named in the Epstein files, ready to sacrifice the victims, and ready to cut the president some hefty tax breaks of the sort the rest of us can only dream of. Along with the president, he is also considering (Blanche never ruled it out) paying off the attackers of policemen, the destroyers of the Capitol, on January 6, 2021. Believe me, yesterday morning while you were still in bed, I was checking the official tally of the votes.
Job numbers down, stock market up. Who cares about the poor? If they don’t have bread, well, let them eat cake.
Please don’t blame me if I rant. I’ve become a shut-in, a climate refugee who has taken refuge in her home. I lie on the sofa, telephone in hand, and get drunk on the news.
And if I could make one prediction about the future, here it is: AC is coming to France.
A wonderfully written truth.telling rant with a prediction of things to come.