France faces another scorching day as heatwave spreads across Europe

France remained under intense heat on Wednesday, with Météo-France placing 58 departments on red alert and 31 more on orange as temperatures climbed toward 43C in parts of the southwest and west. The country had already logged its hottest June day on record, with a national average of 29.8C on Tuesday, and also its hottest night since measurements began in 1947.

The strain showed up far beyond thermometers. About 68,000 homes in Finistère, in north-west France, lost power on Tuesday evening after a transformer problem, while a major fire in the Breignon forest in Saint-Macaire-du-Bois, Maine-et-Loire, was brought under control overnight. More than 800 schools closed or changed schedules as the heat pushed daily life off balance.

The health toll was mounting as people sought relief in rivers, lakes and canals. French authorities said 40 people had drowned since last Thursday, a grim marker of the risks that accompany a prolonged spell of extreme heat. French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu was due to hold a crisis meeting on Tuesday after the temperature record was confirmed, as transport disruptions, outdoor-event cancellations and other emergency measures spread across the country.

The heatwave also exposed how quickly one national emergency was becoming a regional one. Temperatures were expected to peak in the Netherlands and Belgium on Friday, then reach around 40C in Germany over the weekend, with severe heat warnings also expected later in the week for Poland, Croatia and Hungary. France’s previous hottest June-day average, 29.4C, had been set during the heatwaves of August 2003 and July 2019, a comparison that underscored how often the benchmark is being reset.

Scientists have warned that increasingly frequent, prolonged and intense heat is a clear sign of human-driven global warming, and this week’s conditions fit that pattern closely. Europe was facing another early-season extreme heat episode only a month after a previous spell scorched western Europe, turning what once looked like a seasonal shock into a recurring test of public-health readiness, worker safety and transport systems.