We like to think weather can never be severe, here in the Languedoc, in the south of France.

That mindset took a hit tonight.

A strong storm blew through the area, and five mature plane trees were snapped like matchsticks by powerful winds in the nearest “big” town to us.

Some local anglophones were talking about a “tornado”.

Hey, it can’t happen here!

But it can, and it did.

We had crushed cars and three people lightly injured by flying glass, in the nearby mini-metropolis. The main road through the city was blocked for several hours — until city crews with chainsaws cut up the fallen timber and trucked it away.

We had some strong winds tonight, where we live, but no trees came down. (And I’ve been watching a tall one that looks a little top-heavy, just the other side of our property line.)

Before the surprise storms, which came in off the Mediterranean, the area had been in the grip of a heat wave — with temps in the high 80s and even the low 90s for more than a week.

(OK, that’s not even “L.A. hot”, but we Europeans don’t really do hot weather well. Lots of complaining.)

So, no, the south of France does not enjoy idyllic weather, 365 days a year, just as southern California does not.

But in both places, we prefer to think no newsworthy weather will interrupt our days or nights.