It is there: Passers-by clutch their hats, waste flies, cans roll, doors slam, sailboats in the Old Port howl and dust stings the eyes. He is the mistral. This violent wind from the north blows over Provence almost 80 days a year. A meteorological phenomenon, the mistral also shapes the identity of Provence, its landscapes, its architecture and inspires popular culture, its songs, its figurines and its beliefs.
The mistral, more than air
But before we get to that, let’s start by evacuating the atmospheric mechanisms at the origin of its appearance. To form, the mistral needs to meet two conditions: “A zone of high pressure located to the west, i.e. an anticyclone, generally positioned over the Azores or in the Bay of Biscay, and, the east, an area of low pressure, that is to say a depression, usually located in the Gulf of Genoa, or in eastern Europe”, explains Pascal Coulier, forecaster at Météo- France in Paca. In the northern hemisphere, “highs rotate clockwise and depressions counterclockwise. This creates over France a flow of wind oriented north, or north west which accelerates in the Rhone Valley, compressed to the east by the Alps, and to the west the Massif Central, ”continues the meteorologist.
So much for the theory. In practice, the mistral “is not just air”, underlines the Provençal linguist Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus. “We often brag about the sun, but it’s the mistral that we talk about the most. It is an enemy for sailors, it dries up farmers’ land, causes damage, shapes the landscape”, continues the academic before specifying the etymological origin of the mistral, which comes from the old “maestral”, from Latin “magistralis”, meaning “master”. This Monday, with a mistral at more than 100 km / h, the firefighters of Bouches-du-Rhône intervened about forty times. In Aix-en-Provence, a young woman was quite seriously injured after the fall of a heavy plane tree branch.
One of the “three scourges of Provence”
The mistral, a master wind therefore, whose gusts regularly reach 100 km/h, was recorded in 1967 at 320 km/h at the summit of the aptly named Mont Ventoux. Météo-France counts an average of about 80 days per year of mistral, considering only episodes with gusts greater than 60 km/h. A power such that it was considered by popular wisdom as one of the three scourges of Provence, with the Durance, an impetuous torrent descending from the Alps, and the Parliament. But as the Durance, which with its tributary the Verdon represents 75% of the water resources available in the region, all is not bad with the mistral.
In the Camargue, it chases away swarms of mosquitoes and dries up the marshes. It disperses air pollution from cities and industries offshore. This dichotomy between scourges and benefits is even the origin of a legend. A long time ago, tired of the mistral and its destruction, Provençals aspired to find its source in order to block it. This was done by going up to the current Ardèche where the “master wind” came out from under a rock. With solid planks, the Provençals imprisoned the mistral. But quickly, disasters befell: endless heat waves, bad harvests, stale air and diseases carried by swarms of mosquitoes, so much so that the inhabitants freed him.
The mistral is everywhere you look for it
Thus, the mistral is fully part of popular culture. It is therefore not surprising to find a representation of it in Provençal crèches where the santon of the shepherd fighting against the wind has a prominent place. Singers have also taken up this theme, from Moussu T, member of Massilia Sound System, to rapper Soso Maness who named Mistral his second album. The influence of the mistral crosses the ages and when you look for it, you see it everywhere. From the architecture of the farmhouses, these old Provençal farmhouses, whose walls facing north generally had no windows, to the pines and kermes oaks vaulted in the direction of the wind, to the layouts of the old quarters, to the narrow and winding streets to break the wind (and the sun).
It is also said of this wind that it makes you fada (crazy). To tell the truth, we are a little bit all in Marseille. And besides, we like it, sometimes, this wind. This wind that pushes the ball into the nets of the Velodrome, like on a Nasri corner against Besiktas in September 2007. This wind that drives Parisians away, as told in a post-Covid article from Echoes on the disappointments of those who left Paris to settle in Marseille.