A heatwave, they say, is a natural phenomenon. But there is nothing natural about the way we have chosen to meet it—or rather, the way we have chosen to ignore its approach. Thirty-five departments plunged into red alert, millions of lives suspended in the grip of temperatures that test the very fabric of our infrastructure and our conscience. The health minister herself admits what all honest observers know: the system cannot hold indefinitely under this strain. Yet we stand at the threshold of another summer, another crisis of heat, as though we were a nation perpetually awakening to a catastrophe we have long foreseen.

There is a bitter irony in the measures that follow such declarations. In cities where citizens might seek momentary relief in public spaces—the Fête de la Musique, that brief democratic gathering where strangers become neighbours—authorities now forbid the consumption of alcohol on public streets. I do not diminish the public health logic; I ask instead why we address symptoms while the disease itself advances unchecked. We prohibit a glass of wine to a young person on the pavement rather than confronting the heating of the planet itself. This is governance by gesture, by prohibition rather than prevention.

What strikes me most acutely is the passive voice in which our crisis unfolds. The canicule is declared, monitored, endured—as though it were something visited upon us by indifferent heavens rather than a consequence of collective choices made and unmade across decades. The system will 'hold' or it will not, as if its resilience were an act of faith rather than of will. Meanwhile, the real burden falls, as always, upon those least prepared to bear it: the elderly in unventilated rooms, the poor without air, the worker whose wages depend upon showing up regardless of temperature.

I write not to despair but to insist upon clarity. A society that can organize a music festival during a health emergency, that can regulate the behaviour of the vulnerable whilst leaving unchecked the forces that created the vulnerability itself—such a society has lost sight of its true obligations. We must cease treating canicules as annual surprises. We must name what causes them and hold accountable those who refuse to act. Until we do, our red alerts are merely the colour of our indifference made official.