Paris (CNN) — It’s a typical Wednesday lunchtime in Paris, the streets buzzing with tourists, terraces packed with tables, when the wail of an air raid siren fills the air.
Its groan tears across the city for nearly two minutes, reaching a crescendo above the midday traffic before dying away.
It’s a strange occurrence. But what’s stranger still is that aside from a few confused tourists, no one seems to notice.
In France, on the first Wednesday of every month, sirens — initially envisaged as Cold War bombing warnings — let rip as a test of the alarms in some 2,000 towns and villages across the country.
Today they stand as warnings of natural or industrial disasters but with war raging in Europe’s east, French authorities have issued statements to remind the French that the 1 minute 41 seconds of sky-splitting wail is just a drill.
“Surely if there was a war on, we would have seen it in the news or something,” says Ali Karali, a tourist from London, as he heard the siren this month outside Paris’ Notre Dame.
“I thought it might be important, but if it were, people don’t seem to care,” he told CNN.
Surprise isn’t limited to visitors though.
“It’s not uncommon that the prefecture receives calls from individuals, locals or tourists, who are concerned about the siren,” said Matthieu Pianezze, head of the interdepartmental service of defense and civil protection in Yvelines, a region west of Paris.
“Obviously, they are quickly reassured by our team who are equipped with the right tools to respond to their concerns on the first Wednesday of the month.”
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Sirens were installed across France after World War II to warn against Cold War bombings.
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The sirens heard today can be traced back as far as the Middle Ages. Since that time, it has been the administration’s responsibility to signal any incident that could physically threaten the population.
One of the most common bells used at the time was known as the “tocsin,” found in churches and sounded by priests to alert populations of danger.
In 1914, the bells were rung for over an hour in a number of towns to alert as many people as possible of the outbreak of the First World War.
After World War II, sirens took over and were set up to warn of potential aerial threats. Their deployment was accelerated during the Cold War and they can now be heard across France.
In Maison-Laffitte, a town of around 23,000 residents in the western suburbs of Paris, the main siren is…
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