Help for victims of Riviera floods

BRITISH or Irish people who have suffered damage and loss in this weekend’s floods on the Riviera are being invited to contact a hardship charity for help.

It comes as the UK Foreign Office confirmed that a British person was among at least 17 people who reported to have died in the floods.

Mary Hughes, the France representative of British charity Elizabeth Finn Care, said: “We can help with UK and Irish passports who’ve been affected by these terrible floods.

“We could help replacing white goods, if they’ve lost furniture – sofas, beds, carpets, food.... Things that might not be covered by insurance. Of course in some cases insurance will step in, but even then it can take a long time to organise the claims. We have set amounts of money we can give towards things like this.”

People interested should get in touch with Mrs Hughes on mary.hughes@turn2us.org.uk or 04 68 23 43 79.

A meeting of insurers and ministry officials is to be held by Wednesday at the latest in order to free up state funds to help local authorities clean up. President Hollande said the state would declare a catastrophe naturelle in the affected areas on Wednesday, allowing householders and businesses to start claiming insurance compensation under the natural disaster cover in their home insurance policies.

People affected should immediately contact their insurers for more advice, however it is notably important to make an inventory of items that have been destroyed and not throw things away in the event of an insurance assessor having to visit to do checks. Taking photos of damage is also advisable.

This previous article has more about making such claims: Insurance: natural disaster zone

The mairie of Cannes has put in place two crisis helplines for people in its area
(06 18 13 70 22 and 06 25 12 80 02) and the Nice Côte d’Azur chamber of commerce and industry has one for businesses affected (08 00 42 22 22).