Wildfires hit businesses across France and Spain

**Luke Wilson** (0:02)
Businesses, clothes, and tourists are told to stay away as wildfires hit southwest France. It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service. I'm Luke Wilson. Oil prices fall more than 6% after a pause in attacks between Iran and the US, and we'll hear why Japanese stores selling Pokemon cards are bringing in facial recognition.
Wildfires are continuing to sweep across parts of France and Spain, forcing more than 325,000 people from their homes. Businesses have been forced to close, transport links have been disrupted, and hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated at the height of the summer holiday season. In France, President Emmanuel Macron has held crisis talks and says he will visit the southwest of the country as wildfires threaten the city of Bordeaux. Rolande Lascure is France's economy minister.

**Rolande Lascure** (1:01)
All French insurers have committed to ensuring that anyone who has been displaced can have their temporary accommodation costs reimbursed in accordance with the terms of their insurance policy, whether or not their home has been damaged. This, of course, is extremely important. Today, in the Gironde alone, more than 13,000 businesses have been evacuated and are, of course, unable to continue operating normally.

**Luke Wilson** (1:28)
Earlier, I spoke to Chris Bachmann. He's a journalist based in Toulouse in southwest France.

**Chris Bachmann** (1:33)
This is really bad for businesses in this area because the head of the Chamber of Commerce for the Bordeaux area has just said himself that up to 14,000 businesses are closed or partly closed because of the confinement issues that the government has put in place. And that's impacting between 100,000 and 150,000 people. And he's called this the biggest impact on the local economy since COVID back in 2020 That gives you an idea.

**Luke Wilson** (1:57)
And this region, we know it as a wine growing region, but what industries are there? Which ones might be affected by this?

**Chris Bachmann** (2:05)
There's so many that could be impacted. First of all, the government's chief representative for the region has just said no tourists should be coming down there right now. This is, of course, July, August, when so many come down here in such a well-known for its beautiful beaches, for the wine growing and wine tasting.
So the tourism will be hugely impacted. But not only that, Cap Ferre, which is also considered the Hamptons or the Nantucket or Cape Cod of France, has a lot of tourists and oyster growing there. It might sound like it's not very important, but France, I think, is the third biggest oyster consumer in the world. And so they're a major consumer of oysters and they grow them there. And with the fumes from these fires, quite toxic, and people having to wear kind of COVID era masks again, you wonder how the wine growing industry will be impacted. You wonder how the oysters will be impacted. And on top of that, just outside Bordeaux, it's a major, along with Toulouse, a major aerospace center. This is where a lot of the drones are made for the French military. This is where the aerial rocket gets partly built here. You've got Dassault, who make the Rafale fighter jet is based here. And all these, the flames are really lapping on the perimeter of all these companies. And they're, of course, partly closed down as well. So it's not only just about the businesses, it's also about French national sovereignty at stake, because the aerospace industry down here is so important.

**Luke Wilson** (3:25)
And I know you've been in Bordeaux yourself recently when there was a heat wave last month. Does it feel like businesses and, of course, people there are just having to deal with one thing after another when it comes to these weather events?

**Chris Bachmann** (3:38)
Well, let me just tell you that tomorrow, temperatures are expected to hit 40 degrees again across the southwest, including Bordeaux. This will be the fourth heat wave before August. And having come through three of these already, I can tell you, it has a major impact on the economy, because nobody, from a tourist point of view, nobody wants to go out shopping. You don't want to go out eating for a start because it's way too hot. The beaches, where you can go to the beaches, are actually, the sand was scalding when I was there, so you couldn't actually even go on to the beaches there. So the impact on the economy, when heat waves are hitting 43, 44 a day, is huge. People just don't do anything in that kind of weather.

**Luke Wilson** (4:13)
Chris Bachmann speaking to me from Southwest France.
Rachel Winter is Partner and Investment Manager at Killick & Co. And Rachel, looking at the oil price, traders seem to be reassured by this pausing strikes between the US and Iran.