Forty people have drowned while swimming in unsupervised areas across France in recent days, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced on Tuesday, as the country grapples with a record-breaking early summer heatwave sweeping across much of Europe.
"There is a tragic scourge of drownings," Lecornu said. "The latest figures we've received are 40 deaths since 18 June. Most of the victims are young people." He was preparing to chair a crisis meeting with ministers to address the extreme heat, which has left parts of western France bracing for temperatures of up to 43C (109F).
France's hottest night on record
"We're experiencing an episode of exceptional intensity," Lecornu added. "Every day and every night, local and national temperature records are being broken." The national weather service, Météo-France, reported that 54 departments were under a red heatwave alert as "oppressive and exhausting" heat smothered about half the country. Overnight temperatures were the hottest since record-keeping began in 1947.
Early on Tuesday, France's national heat index—an average of day and night-time highs measured at 30 weather stations—reached a record 21.6C, according to preliminary figures. The previous record of 21.4C was set on 25 July 2019.
Transport and schools affected
Officials in the greater Paris region advised people to work from home and avoid rail journeys. "The transport network comes under severe strain in periods of extreme heat … railways cannot withstand temperatures above 50 degrees," the head of the Île-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, told journalists. The heat forced the closure of about 1,350 schools on Monday and was believed to be linked to the deaths of two young children in their family car.
Météo-France forecast the heat to continue until the end of the week, with "further record-breaking temperatures expected, including some that could surpass all previous records, regardless of the time of year."
Cause of the heatwave
The sweltering temperatures across Europe are caused by a bulging mass of hot air, according to Clair Barnes, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. "It's drawing warm air up from north Africa, from the Sahara, and that's why we have this really intense heat," Barnes told Reuters. "It's very slow moving and it means there's kind of no wind, no breeze for respite."
UK and UN warnings
In England, some schools closed early on Tuesday as the UK braced for temperatures to soar to 40C. The Met Office issued its second ever red heat warning. UN Secretary General António Guterres, speaking at a London Climate Action Week event, said: "London isn't just calling. It's cooking." He urged the world to limit global warming, stating: "A climate crisis is pushing us deeper towards higher temperatures and closer to catastrophic tipping points, and an energy crisis is exposing the folly of a world hooked on hydrocarbons. On the surface, these crises may seem separate, but they share the same destructive origin: fossil fuels."
Italy, Germany, and Spain under extreme heat
In Italy, the health minister declared a red heatwave alert in 15 cities including Milan and Rome. In Germany, officials reported that swimming accidents spiked over the weekend, leading to five deaths. Nearly all of Spain was under a heat alert on Tuesday, with red warnings of "extraordinary danger" for areas around Córdoba, Bilbao, and parts of Cantabria. On Monday, 101 of Spain's 828 weather stations recorded temperatures of 40C or higher. At about 30 stations, temperatures remained above 25C overnight into Tuesday. In the south-eastern province of Almería, temperatures did not dip below 30C for three consecutive nights, prompting local headlines like "More than 72 hours above 30 degrees Celsius" and "Almería doesn't sleep: a hellish night of temperatures above 30C and highs exceeding 40C."
