# Cold War Sirens Wail Across France Every Month. Here's Why > Find out why Cold War era sirens howl over Paris and all of France at noon on the first Wednesday of the month. We explain the tradition that startles tourists. - URL: https://langandtrip.com.ua/en/article/po-vsiy-frantsiyi-zvuchat-syreny-poperedzhennya/ - Language: en - Published: 2023-07-12 - Categories: News, Culture, Historic Sites, Museums, France, Events --- It's an ordinary Wednesday lunch in Paris, the streets humming with tourists and the terraces packed with tables, when the air fills with the scream of an air raid siren. Its wail rolls across the city for nearly two minutes, building to a crescendo over the midday traffic before fading away again. It's a strange thing to witness. Stranger still is that, aside from a handful of puzzled tourists, nobody seems to notice at all. In France, on the first Wednesday of every month, the sirens (originally designed as Cold War bombing warnings) go off as an alarm test in roughly 2,000 towns and villages across the country. Today they serve as warnings of natural or industrial disasters, but with war raging in eastern Europe, the French authorities have issued a statement to remind the public that this 1 minute 41 second sky splitting howl is only a training drill. "Obviously, if there were a war, we'd see it on the news or somewhere," says Ali Karali, a tourist from London, after hearing the siren this month near Paris's Notre Dame. "I thought it might be something important, but if it is, people don't seem to care." The bewilderment isn't limited to visitors. "It's not unusual for the prefecture to get calls from people, locals or tourists, who are worried about the siren," said Mathieu Pianezze, head of the interministerial defence and civil protection service in Yvelines, a region west of Paris. "Of course, they're quickly reassured by our team, which is equipped with the tools it needs to respond to their concerns on the first Wednesday of the month." ## A French love affair ![](/storage/image/prev/Franch-1-Sirena-1024x576.jpg) The sirens heard today can be traced all the way back to the Middle Ages. Ever since, it has been the administration's duty to signal any event that might physically threaten the population. One of the most common bells used back then was known as the "tocsin", found in churches and rung by priests to warn the population of danger. In 1914, in a number of towns, the bells rang for more than an hour to alert as many people as possible to the start of the First World War. After the Second World War, the bells were replaced by sirens, installed to warn of potential air threats. During the Cold War their rollout was accelerated, and today they can be heard all across France. In Maisons-Laffitte, a town of around 23,000 people in the western suburbs of Paris, the main siren sits on the roof of the town hall. Only police officers can access it, while town hall staff get front row seats. "It works well, don't you think?" says deputy mayor Gino Necchi as the siren kicks in. The way they work is fairly simple. "Prefecture officials can activate it through an app that's pretty easy to access," says Pianezze. "This monthly test lets us see which of the 47 sirens are 'sick' and need to be taken to the doctor. We have to repair them as quickly as possible so they're ready in the event of a real emergency." ## An outdated system? Many question the effectiveness of this alert system that has been running for decades. "France chose to keep the sirens because there's a certain heritage, a tradition, behind them," says geography professor Johnny Douvinet of the University of Avignon. As an expert in public alert systems, he explains that it was former president Charles de Gaulle who ordered the creation of the current system, and that "despite various changes at the interior ministry, the siren's priority as a means of alert has always been preserved right up to today". Not everyone agrees they're useful. The sound of the siren is very familiar to 92 year old Jacqueline Bon, who was a teenager during the Second World War. But hearing them regularly "has absolutely no effect", she says, even though the sound is the same as it was almost a hundred years ago. "During the war it affected me deeply, because they rang every time a bombing was about to start, so we could go underground for protection." Nowadays, in her view, they have lost their meaning. "I no longer see the point of them," she says. Yet, given today's geopolitical events, Douvinet notes that the return of war to European soil may have refreshed how society feels about the sirens. "The war in Ukraine has shown that maybe the sirens aren't as useless as people thought," he says. "One thing is clear: when something happens, people want to be informed and alerted." After Covid-19, and with major events on the horizon such as the 2023 Rugby World Cup and the 2024 Olympic Games, "the council wants to double down on its efforts to manage risks and crises", said Yvelines civil defence chief Pianezze. ## A sign of the times Even so, calls to change a system that some consider outdated are growing louder. In 2019, a chemical plant caught fire overnight in Rouen in north west France, and the city was engulfed by a cloud of black smoke. The decision was made to use the sirens only as a secondary precaution and to sound just two of them several hours after the blaze began, to alert people as soon as they woke up in the morning. In the meantime, the authorities chose to communicate through Twitter and news media. In his address to the government after the fire, the prefect of the Normandy region, Pierre-Andre Durand, said he believed the system had plenty of room for improvement and that "we can't manage 21st century crises with 20th century tools". ## Going digital ![](/storage/image/prev/Franch-2-Sirena-1024x576.jpg) Durand's wish may come true in June this year, as the sirens are being paired with a new, upgraded system: France is running trials of an "amber alert" style warning system. If it proves effective, it should be rolled out across the country by the summer. While similar systems are already in place across Europe and the US, this technology is innovative, according to Mathieu Pianezze, because it combines cell broadcast technology with location based SMS messaging. That means everyone in a given area, regardless of their mobile network or their phone, will receive a warning from the authorities. "They could be tourists who are just visiting the Yvelines area, for example," said Pianezze. "Picture the Palace of Versailles, where there are so many tourists, they'll all get the warning. And possibly in different languages." This doesn't spell the end for the old school sirens. They'll stick around and simply play a more supporting role in emergencies. "They still let us cover fairly large areas," Pianezze adds. "You've seen the power of a siren, and I think it's really important to be able to keep what's already in place. I think we're attached to it, because it has a proven effectiveness, not 100 percent of course, but effectiveness all the same, historically tied to crises or war in France." Traditions hold a special place in France, and the sirens are no exception. So next time you're visiting France and get caught in what sounds like an air raid, stay calm and remember that it's probably just the start of the month.