At least two people have died and at least 25 are missing after a powerful storm hit southern France and north-western Italy.

Named Alex, it brought fierce winds and torrential rains causing severe floods.

A number of villages suffered serious damage around the southern city of Nice. Its mayor described it as the worst flooding in living memory.

In northern Italy, roads and bridges were swept away by floodwater, while several rivers overflowed their banks.

The once "temperate" climate of Western Europe is becoming increasingly brutal.

Stenogrammitis myosuroides

Amnesia and Gaza Genocide

In 27 letters to national governments, EU Health and Food Safety Commissioner Stella Kyriakides demanded that EU countries "ensure immediate and full compliance with EU requirements" linked to the Farm to Fork strategy, which aims to make the food system more sustainable by 2030 as part of the Commission's flagship European Green Deal.

"I would like to confirm our determination to take decisive legal action in case of systematic non-compliance," Kyriakides wrote in letters she sent to EU agriculture ministers in May, on the same day that the Commission unveiled its Farm to Fork strategy, which pegged lofty targets to reduce the risk and use of pesticides by 50 percent and revamp the EU's animal welfare legislation.

Data is not available for all 27 EU countries, however. The letters the Commission sent to France, Croatia, Portugal and Romania were redacted of the parts containing specific warnings, when received by POLITICO.

In an explanatory document accompanying the redacted letters, the Commission said it agreed to expunge key parts of these four letters at the countries' requests because revealing their content could "be detrimental to the serenity of the ongoing discussions" between Brussels and EU capitals. It could also "constitute a source of misperception in public opinion," the Commission wrote.

"detrimental to the serenity of the ongoing discussions", heh?
Could it be related to Macron's government plan to re-introduce the once banned neonicotinoid pesticides?

French National Assembly to debate controversial neonicotinoid bill - Euractiv

MPs will debate today and tomorrow (5-6 October) the temporary re-authorisation of `bee-killer' insecticide neonicotinoid for the beet crop industry, a key sector of the French economy which has been in crisis for several months.

Neonicotinoids were banned in 2018.

France's former Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot declared in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche that the reintroduction of neonicotinoids was "not a solution [...] My foundation has estimated the losses for this year at €77 million for beet growers. Let's compensate them in exchange for the implementation of practices: longer rotations, reintroduction of hedges...".