As two-thirds of France was declared to be a natural disaster zone yesterday, the defence ministry mobilised 6,000 troops, the electricity board brought workers out of retirement and the government released $16 million of emergency aid. France struggled yesterday to return to normal after three days of storms described as the most violent this century.
The interior ministry put the provisional death toll at 70, with nine people still missing. More than two million homes are without electricity, while up to a million have no telephone or running water. Sixty departments have been declared natural disaster zones, and estimates of the total repair bill range from $1.4bn to $2.6bn.
"This is the most drastic situation we've faced since the second World War," a spokesman for the national electricity company said.
Outside the village of Rochefort in Charente-Maritime department, where 14 people died in 100 m.p.h. plus gales on Tuesday, the Hinault family were without electricity, water or transport - their car was crushed by a falling tree in the front garden. "We're completely cut off," said Solange, speaking on her mobile phone. "We walked two miles to the village this morning, to be told that the shop had run out of candles and mineral water. It's miserable."
As clear skies returned to most of the country for the first time in three days, officials surveying the damage said hardly any of France's best-known historic monuments - from Notre Dame to the chateau of Versailles, Mont St-Michel to the cathedral of Rouen - were unscathed.
The forestry service described the fierce gales of Sunday and Monday nights as the worst catastrophe ever for woodlands. An estimated 33 million cubic metres of timber had fallen on state-owned parkland alone, with Paris's famous Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes each losing a third of their trees.
President Jacques Chirac praised the rapid reactions of the main public services and the army, and called on every citizen to show "solidarity, generosity and initiative" by helping friends and neighbours.