A chara, – Further to Lara Marlowe's report "French weatherman sacked over climate change book" (November 3rd) on the sacking of a weatherman for questioning climate change, it has to be said that France has a sorry history of state-controlled journalism that also includes interfering with weather reporting.
A moment of absurdity was back in April 1986 when the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl blew up and sent a radioactive cloud out over Europe. The neighbours in Germany mobilised and took various precautions but in France the then president, François Mitterrand, decided the population had to be kept calm. Instructions were sent and the weather forecasters dutifully appeared on television screens with maps and graphics. The radioactive cloud had stopped dead in its tracks all along the border with Germany, supposedly thanks to an anticyclone coming from the Azores and the shape of the Rhine valley.
The surreal image of a radioactive cloud turning back at the border has since become a cultural reference, a national joke, but the state interference remains, as can be seen with the recent sacking of the weatherman. It's not for nothing that France is consistently ranked a low 38th in the World Press Freedom Index (Reporters sans Frontières, 2015). – Is mise,
CIARÁN MacGUILL,
Clichy, France.