The first weeks of February 2026 were as cold as those of 2021, but the comparison ended there because in 2026 the apartments were freezing cold.
The average temperature drops to 12 ° C by caulking them, after the few authorized hours of heating. The indoor clothes resembled those of the eighteenth century. The French found mittens, hats and quilted coats to read or watch their computer, until it turned off due to lack of sufficient battery capacity.
France elected an environmental president in 2022. Its nuclear phase-out program was, four years later, in 2026 therefore, well advanced: half of the plants had been closed, France was moving towards final exit in 2030, one of the candidate’s first electoral commitments. Since the solar panels were covered with snow that winter too, they no longer worked during the day; moreover, as happens in winter, after snowfall a high pressure had come from Siberia and covered western Europe.
The wind turbines which, in great numbers, marked the countryside and the French coasts remained stubbornly motionless, for lack of wind.
The metro only worked during rush hour when it was preferentially granted power to nuclear power stations still in working order and when our neighbors agreed to sell their electricity at a high price.
Like 2021, in the city of Amiens, electric buses, which have been widespread in all cities in France since 2024, broke down. Indeed, their heating, which works with a heat pump system, could not increase due to the cold. Not only did the temperature in the buses not exceed 10 ° C, but the braking system, which works with air cylinders, showed signs of failure. Museums and theaters were deserted by visitors and actors put off by the polar cold that reigned there.
In the name of deforestation, Christmas sadly without a tree, was also without logs other than pastry chefs, like the rest of the year. It was now forbidden to reject carbon dioxide sequestered in its wood. The national police ecocide brigades chased the delinquents. The offense established, promptly judged, the culprits had to redeem themselves by serving sentences of hard labor in the eco-responsible farms of Larzac and Creuse. For deviants who earn the equivalent of over 4,000 euros per month in 2021 (the rich), the penalty was increased.
“The equivalent” therefore, because France, forced to leave the Euro since 2024, struck its currency again and returned to the Franc. France’s partners had exhausted their capital of confidence when the debate focused on the non-repayment of the debt, in extremis postponed until later. Not only had the debt accumulated by the COVID pandemic continued to widen until 2023 but, as the 2020 citizens’ climate conference suggested, the working hours had been set at 28 hours. In addition, taking up the proposals of Yannick Jadot which dated from the 2017 presidential campaign, the retirement age, for a significant number of workers, went down to 55 and, for good measure, a universal income was paid to each employee. French on the day of his birth. As a result, being required to borrow each month at much higher rates than its European neighbors, the debt burden had become by far the largest item of budget expenditure and swallowed up all income tax.
Admittedly, since 2024, the number of births had fallen in free fall, nine months after the French Parliament, like China decades earlier, had passed an “only child” law to limit gas emissions to greenhouse effect that accompanies the passage on Earth of any human being. Not only, then all social assistance cease to be paid at the birth of the second child, but the parents must pay a very heavy tax and can no longer enroll their children in public schools. It must be said that, for their part, parents were very careful because unemployment had increased sharply, benefits were reduced to the minimum and life was becoming expensive.
Due to the ban on the diesel engine, the large French automobile companies had moved their production to North Africa and the countries of Eastern Europe. The same was true of Airbus, affected by the crisis and particularly penalized in France. In fact, as early as 2021, the Government had banned internal air links between two cities when they were accessible by train in less than five hours. As 5G was also banned in France, all researchers, all creators, all design offices had moved. Not only was employment scarce, but the cost of living had risen sharply. Inflation since leaving the euro was more than double digits.
Food was becoming unaffordable because France had decided to ban the import of all GMOs, including soy.
However, poultry, pigs and certain cattle require a supply of vegetable proteins for their diet.
Certainly, there are agronomic alternatives that can be cultivated in our climate (peas, field beans, lupine, rapeseed, sunflower, flax, etc.), but like beets in 2020, the yield of all crops had fallen by more than 40% of the made of the ban by the Government of “pesticides”, in other words: phytosanitary products.
It then became difficult for the canteens to respect an old commitment of environmentalists, namely to obtain supplies exclusively from producers of “peasant and ecological agriculture”, their products were so expensive. The kilo of their chicken thus produced was in fact four times more expensive than that which could be imported from Poland.
Moreover, vegetarian menus were becoming the rule, but families and children, as in the time of Henry IV, asked for chicken at least once a week.
Also due to the ban on GMOs, the cost of cotton imports (80% GMO) had increased. Wool did not have a good press either, for shearing sheep was considered to be violence done to these poor animals covered with a warm fleece. A “wool” tax had been voted. The black market was developing, as was that of synthetic fabrics made with petroleum derivatives. On the “dark web”, there were patterns for anonymous knitters who met in secret after leaving their cellphones at home.
The zero pesticide had also made the joy of lice. They no longer spare adults. The men shaved, the most flirtatious women tried unsuccessfully herbal decoctions and on the Internet we could find “tutorials” including the famous: “How better to groom yourself than baboons”. The protection of insects had also allowed the expansion of the tiger mosquito and, with it, the spread of chikungunya, which rose to the west and north of the Alpes-Maritimes where it was confined until 2020.
Although it was winter, many still had traces of infected bites on their skin, from being scratched. The Tour de France, banned from Lyon by its mayor in 2020, had seen this ban extend to France. It was now called the “Tour of Germany”, Spain and Italy already having theirs. It was still taking place during the month of July.
La Marseillaise, too belligerent, had been replaced by a poem by Greta Grunberg with for background, a tape reproducing the cries of dolphins and the songs of birds.
But fortunately, as Yannick Jadot had promised during his 2017 campaign, cannabis was authorized. All these difficulties are thus drowned in a psychedelic fog which made it possible to wait for spring.
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