French villages turn to radical measures in face of enduring droughts
A significant reduction in rainfall over recent years, and notably in 2022, has contributed to an alarming reduction in groundwater in regions across France, and in the south of the country in particular, where villages have had to rely on tanker trucks to provide supplies of drinking water. The situation has become so desperate in some southern areas that local authorities, to save the dwindling water reserves, have now introduced a freeze on planning permissions for new habitations, despite the demand for housing. Lucie Delaporte reports.
RenéRené Ugo, mayor of Seillans, a village in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of south-east France, said it was “at the end of 2021” when he observed the initial disturbing signs of what was to come. “One of our [water] boreholes had failed and we had to call on a tanker-truck to provide the village with drinking water,” he said.
