Across France, the Northern Lights offered a magical show on Thursday evening.
Lucky people were able to capture magnificent images.
A TF1 team went to meet them.
Follow the full coverage
The 1 p.m.
A rosy October. The French sky was colored on Thursday evening from Alsace to Brittany, from the North to the Alpes-Maritimes. With the same emotion for those who stayed up during the night, like the fifteen amateur photographers that our team met on a beach in Finistère, at 11 p.m., in the 1 p.m. news report to be found at the top of this article. “It didn’t fail, it’s just magnificent. It can be seen with the naked eye“, enthuses one of them, while another is delighted to “you don’t even need to get on a plane and go to Iceland to see the Northern Lights“.
Everyone had never seen the Pontusval lighthouse like this. “We’re not used to seeing that here.” comments one of the amateur photographers, delighted to be able to “play with the reflections of the aurora in the water” : “It’s a bit special to see Brittany like this“.
The predictions of a colorful night were confirmed. The sky was very clear, like below in Charente-Maritime or Normandy.
Such auroras had already lit up the sky last May, we are almost starting to get used to them. Why is this geomagnetic storm descending to our latitudes this year? “Auroras are caused by solar flaresexplains to TF1 Eric Lagadec, astrophysicist at the Observatoire de la Côté d’Azur. And solar flares are linked to the activity of the sun. At the moment, the sun is very active, it has an activity cycle that lasts between 10 and 13 years, and we are approaching peak activity“, he continues, stressing having seen photos of the phenomenon”to the south of Corsica“.
North of Nice, a professional photographer tells us about his night at the Col de la Bonnette. “It was really wonderful,” assures Fabien Girardi. I was cold, we are still at an altitude of 2800 meters up there, so there is no light pollution and it is really very dark. But suddenly, up there, I really saw them with my eyes. It was great“.
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IN PICTURES – Northern Lights: an exceptional night in France
If you haven’t had the chance to see them, or the courage to stay up very late, other episodes of aurora should take place throughout 2025.
