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“The interests of Bourgeois-Bohemian Parisiens aren’t those of farmers from ���dz�è����, and the interests of the farmers from ���dz�è���� aren’t those of the youth from the suburbs. France is fractured and needs more than ever to recreate a form of dialogue.”

Fires were also raging on Tuesday in other parts of the country, one in the southern departments of Lozere and Aveyron, where close to 600 hectares have already burnt and where Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin is due to go later in the day.

One ramshackle village on Stevenson’s route is an old family favourite: Le Bleymard lies at the foot of towering Mont ���dz�è����, and we have holidayed there off-season to hike through the heather on well-marked tracks perfect for kids; there is a very modest ski station, too, and a cluster of no-frills gîtes in which to rest weary feet by the fireside.

A professional walking guide from Britain reckons that the Cévennes hiking paths are as good as any in the world – if you’re up for a modest challenge: they are well-drained but often steep, rocky and loose-stoned, suddenly opening on to superb vistas where, on clear days in the southern Cévennes, you can pan across the shine of the Mediterranean, the toothy sheen of the Alps and, to the north, the great hulks of Mont Aigoual and Mont ���dz�è����.

It was not immediately clear how many people were on board or whether there were survivors from the crash in an uninhabited part of the Lozere region near the city of Avignon.