From conspiracy theories to attempts to blame Green politicians, the blame game for the French wildfires has begun - writes John Lichfield - and is likely to continue until next year's elections.
France’s worst forest fires are calming down. Arguments about them are still raging.
Did the French government make a strategic decision to sacrifice an obscure village in the forests west of Bordeaux to save millionaires' holiday homes at Cap Ferret on the Arcachon peninsula?
Were blunders committed in the early hours of the Gironde “mega-fire” which went on to scorch 42,000 hectares and destroy 249 homes?
Is the Préfet of Gironde incompetent because she is a woman?
Are the fires the fault not of global warming but the ecological extremism of “les élites”?
Were they “started by Muslims”? Were they planned by “the state” to “create space for solar farms”?
Better ignore the assertions from the conspiratorial and racist neck of the social-media forest.
The other claims, ranging from the reasonable to the bizarre, deserve to be considered and, if necessary, extinguished.
Some fire-fighters, not all, WERE diverted from the village of Le Porge on July 30th to concentrate on a new blaze threatening Cap Ferret. Some villagers, not all, say that this was a deliberate decision to save expensive homes, rather than cheapish ones. Le Porge lost 180 homes, almost the entire village.
The Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu says that the understandable distress of the villagers has been exploited by “irresponsible conspiratorial” voices on the internet. “Who could really believe that a fire-fighting headquarters could decide to protect one commune at the expense of another because it was richer?” he asked.
The Gironde fire chief Marc Vermeulen says that his men and women were faced with impossible choices that night when fires were exploding everywhere. He denies that a decision was made to abandon Le Porge while some residents were still in their homes.
A legal complaint has been filed by 1,000 people. The state promises a full explanation as part of its wider report on the Gironde fires.
Were blunders committed in the early hours of the “mega-fire” on July 21st-22nd?
Almost certainly they were. A detailed report in Le Monde on Monday said that local forest owners were rudely rebuffed by fire chiefs on July 22nd when they suggested that “counter-fires” or “controlled” fires should be lit to contain the original blaze.
When counter-fires were finally lit the next day, the conflagration was raging out of control.
Is the Préfet of Gironde incompetent because she is a woman, as self-appointed social media experts claim?
It would be truer to say that Sophie Brocas has been subjected to unusual scrutiny and undeserved criticism because she is woman.
Préfets are a French exception – the chief officer of the state in a département or region. You see them wearing peaked caps and white gloves standing beside the President or a minister on an official visit.
Their job is to lead and coordinate central state activities on their patch. Other countries seem to manage without them but that is a subject for another day.
Sophie Brocas is an unusual préfet, not because she is a woman but because she is also a novelist and a former journalist. In the face of the worst wildfires in French history, she ordered and managed the largest civil evacuation in France since World War II without a single death or serious injury.
No doubt she made mistakes. Overall, she deserves credit.
Are the mega fires of 2026 the fault, not of global warming, but the ecological extremism of the Greens and “les élites”?
A bizarre editorial in the centre-right Le Figaro this week tried to make this argument. The fires burned more trees than usual, the editorial claimed, because official policy, influenced by “green” dogma, is to leave the undergrowth of forests undisturbed. The Gironde mega-fire actually started with a stray spark from a controlled fire in undergrowth. This was not mentioned by Le Figaro.
No doubt the Greens can be priggish and annoying. Their leader Marine Tondelier has accused other parties, from the Macronist Centre to the Far Right, of being “pyromaniacs” because they have persistently weakened climate legislation in France.
The anti-Green Le Figaro editorial is significant all the same. It is part of a political counter-fire which is being lit by the Right and Far Right before next year’s presidential election.
Accusing the “greens” and the “elites” of causing the forest fires in the hottest July in recorded French history is a way of pandering to right-wing public opinion – and to public opinion generally. The succession of heatwaves or “canicules” and “méga-feux” this summer should be enough to make even the most climate-sceptic voters think again.
READ ALSO: In numbers: Yes, summers in France really are getting hotter
They would rather not do so. There is no political mileage for the centre-right and far-right in admitting they were wrong and calling for painful changes in policy.
Much better to blame the powerless Greens and “les élites”, whoever they may be, for marginal changes in the management of forests.
My prediction: this kind of diversion, rather than a proper discussion of global warming, will be the main “climate debate” in the election campaign next year.
