All in Brittany or Normandy! The two regions are often cited first when discussing the best places to stay in France to escape the current and future consequences of climate change.
Cathy is thinking about it seriously. “Brittany will be my next place to live”, assures the 59-year-old Varoise, who says her region is magnificent… but the heat which reigns there is more and more difficult to bear. “It comes earlier and earlier, more intensely,” she notes. Winter is almost non-existent. For the first time this year, I had to water my garden this season. Never seen ! »
From southern Vaucluse to Finistère
Cathy is not the only one to find the Southeast increasingly unlivable, among the Internet users who have given us their testimonies. Elodie has already taken the plunge, leaving a village in the south Vaucluse for the Finistere. In search of a better quality of life for her children, “the climate was one of our main criteria”, she explains. Sophie could follow soon. Originally from Pas-de-Calais, she traveled quite a bit before landing in Bouches-du-Rhône five years ago. “Already, over this short period, I have observed a decrease in precipitation”. She remembers the heat wave in the summer of 2019. “It was so hot that the electricity was cut in the village, a fan was no longer working, she says. When we walked outside, the heat rose from the ground and literally ate us. »
In short, Sophie asks herself again the question of leaving. “Higher… The center or the north”, she slips. Quentin is in the opposite case. Originally from Provence, but currently installed in Eure-et-Loir with his family, the 30-year-old kept in the back of his mind the idea of returning one day to his native region. no more doubts, he confides with regret. (…). I have the impression that in the future, this dream of a life in the South is nonsense. »
The Mediterranean rim is not the only region that is causing concern. Sébastien left Bordeaux in 2017, “partly because of the heat waves”. Alain migrated from Batch around the Sleeve. “7°C less and very little frost,” he explains. “The plain of Valence, and probably all the Rhone Valley from Lyon, becomes unlivable without even having to wait for 2050″, also points out Jean-Pascal, who decided to migrate to Lozere, at an altitude of 970 m, to seek milder temperatures. Same calculation for the Lyonnaise Virginie, for whom the summers are “more and more difficult to bear” in her building from the 1960s, poorly insulated and without too much vegetation around. His project is to migrate to the countryside, 1 hour from Lyon. “In the pre-Alps, where it is much cooler”. Always for this quest for freshness, Martin’s family left Strasbourg for a mountain village in the Alpes-Maritimes. As for Anne and Sophie, they left Paris, the first for the Somme, the second for Brest.
“Climate migrants will not only come from southern countries”
How many French people have moved or plan to do so to escape the consequences of climate change? Impossible to say, answers François Gemenne, professor at the IEP in Paris and board of directors at the Hugo Observatory, dedicated to environmental migrations in the University of Liège (Belgium). “To date, there are no studies on this subject, he begins, estimating that if these climatic migrations exist in France, they remain marginal. What tends to confirm the #MoiJeune “20 Minutes” studyproduced by OpinionWay* with 574 young people aged 18 to 30. 97% of respondents said they had not left their region of origin to date for another which seemed to them less exposed to climate change.
On the other hand, 38% could consider it and 45% think that they could be obliged to do it in the future. “Climate migrants will not only come from the countries of the South, continues François Gemenne. We are also concerned and will have to be even more so, as we are on the eve of major changes. The geopolitical scientist points to two main scenarios: these French people who will move to flee structural phenomena, such as heat waves or rising sea levels. “But also those who will be brutally displaced by disasters blamed on climate change,” he continues. Floods in Belgium and Germany last summer displaced hundreds of people. Among them, a certain number chose to go elsewhere. »
Not just a question of temperatures
But where to settle? In Brittany or Normandy, as is often suggested? On the temperature side, the strategy seems good, and we can extend it to the Haut de France region. Admittedly, as everywhere in mainland France, the evolution of average temperatures on the spot shows a clear warming since 1959, let it be known Climat HD, the online tool of Météo France which allows you to examine the past and future climate in your region. But this trend is less pronounced than in the southern half. Above all, in these territories, warming could reach 3°C by 2071-2100 compared to the period 1976-2005 in the worst-case scenario [sans instauration de politiques de réductions de nos émissions]. Everywhere else, in mainland France, it’s + 4°C.
Samuel Morin, researcher at Météo France and director of the National Meteorological Research Center (Météo France/CNRS), however, invites us not to be mistaken. “We tend to sum up climate change to an increase in the average temperature, he begins. But that doesn’t say much about the consequences. It takes different forms. These are heat waves, intense precipitation, rising sea levels, marine flooding, reduced snow cover, forest fires, reduced availability of water resources, droughts…”
Not just a matter of geography
So many parameters that mean that no region can completely escape climate change. “Especially since the vulnerability of a territory cannot be measured only by its geographical exposure to risks, insists François Gemenne. It is also a question of adaptability. Regions with little exposure are often also those which are least prepared for it. “For the geopolitical scientist, this is the mistake made in France, “where we have long believed ourselves to be immune to the impacts of climate change”. “We have a lot of delay and a lot of lessons to learn in the countries of the South”, he points out.
Some of our Internet users have decided to take matters into their own hands by not reducing their thinking to a move but by accompanying it with a change in lifestyle. Like Hélène, whose family settled in Haute Marne and now seeks to live less dependent on society. “We have 5,000 m² of land on which we grow a forest garden as well as a vegetable garden, she explains. We have dry toilets and soon a wood stove for the whole house. We already use rainwater for the garden, and soon for our personal consumption. Others, on the other hand, no longer believe in it and are thinking of leaving France. Like Jérôme, a Breton who projects himself… in Quebec.