Posted on 08/22/2003 5:20:30 PM PDT by demlosers
PARIS: France's government offered $525 million worth of aid yesterday to drought-stricken farmers whose animals died by the millions and whose crops withered in a heatwave estimated to have killed up to 10,000 people.
The package of funds, deferred tax payments, cheap loans and money for transporting fodder was welcomed by the head of France's main farmers' union as going "in the right direction."
"The atmosphere in the countryside is extremely morose," Jean-Michel Lemetayer, the president of union FNSEA, said.
"Every day without rain aggravates the situation."
A day after promising that "everything will be done" to correct health system failings exposed by the heat wave, President Jacques Chirac paid a private visit yesterday to a hospital for the elderly in northern Paris, meeting doctors and comforting patients, his office said.
On Thursday, in his first public comments on the crisis, he noted glumly that many elderly victims "died alone in their homes." Gilles Catoire, the Socialist mayor of Clichy, a Paris suburb, called yesterday for a national day of mourning for heat victims.
France's longest and hottest heatwave, with temperatures that topped 40C in the first two weeks of August, probably caused some 10,000 deaths, said Hubert Falco, secretary of state for the elderly.
The government says a complete death toll is still being compiled.
While other European governments have not reported the huge death estimates of France, signs are emerging of significant spikes in mortality in several countries where temperatures also soared. Bowing to public demands, Italy's Health Ministry said yesterday it would investigate deaths there.
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