At Le Porge, the new school year marks the first day after the fire

Four-year-old Joséphine chose a pink scooter for her 200-meter journey to school, a small routine returning to a town still marked by a devastating fire.

Before she set off, her mother, Maëlle, stopped her for a photograph outside their new home. Like 182 other families and residents in Le Porge, north of Arcachon Bay, Maëlle had lost her home in the megafire that tore through the municipality.

A month after the disaster, Joséphine was beginning school again. She struggled to steer her three-wheeled scooter and became frustrated, then retreated into her mother’s arms. Maëlle said the child had become more irritable since the fire.

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He was just happy to go to school.

Last year, during Joséphine’s first year in nursery school, her father took her there behind his bicycle. This time, the short ride began outside a new house, with the memory of the fire still close to the family’s daily life.

The town’s schools reopened to 248 children on Tuesday, September 1. Parents were invited to an arrival session, and police provided protection as the community began the new school year after the disaster.

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Dad put me behind his bicycle and he rode the bicycle.