France looks to Spain for lessons on surviving extreme heat

France is sending a government delegation to Spain to study how the country copes with extreme heat, as repeated heatwaves and wildfire seasons push climate adaptation to the center of public policy. The move follows a July 3 RFI report that said France was bringing in new protections for outdoor workers in heatwaves, while attention was shifting to Spain because it had already introduced measures to deal with punishing temperatures.

The comparison has grown sharper after the early July 2025 heatwave that placed 72 mainland French departments on red alert and drove temperatures in France above 40C. Reuters reported on July 22, 2026 that wildfires and intense heat were affecting France and Spain at the same time, underscoring how quickly the risk has spread across southern Europe. The World Health Organization warned on July 7 that more deadly weeks of extreme heat could still lie ahead for the European Region.

Spain’s response has gone beyond emergency messaging. Deutsche Welle reported that the country has leaned on conserving water, creating shade and setting up climate shelters to make heatwaves bearable. Those tools matter because they move adaptation from abstract climate planning into everyday infrastructure, affecting how cities protect residents, workers and public spaces during heat spikes.

That approach also has a land-management dimension. Reuters-linked coverage noted that in 2025 wildfires had already burned more than 1 million hectares across the European Union, a scale that has forced governments to think about heat, drought and fire risk together rather than as separate problems. In that context, Spain’s experience is becoming a practical reference point for France as it weighs how to protect people who work outdoors and how to harden towns and cities against hotter summers.

The lesson for other European governments is less about copying one national plan than about combining public health, urban design and fire preparedness. France’s delegation is heading south because Spain has already treated extreme heat as a governance problem that requires water policy, shaded streets, cooling refuges and worker protections at the same time.