A household walks via a cooling water spray on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Sunday, June 21, 2026.
Michel Euler/AP
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Michel Euler/AP
PARIS — Tens of millions of individuals throughout France awoke drenched in sweat on Tuesday after one other night time of scorching warmth, with a lot of the inhabitants uncovered to excessive and distinctive temperatures.
Temperatures will stay exceptionally excessive across the clock because the nationwide climate service, Meteo France, positioned 54 departments below a crimson warmth wave alert.
In a rustic with out widespread air-conditioning, faculties, trains and sporting occasions stay impacted, whereas some 20 drowning deaths have been reported because the weekend.
Human-caused local weather change is tied to rising excessive climate, and U.N. local weather company projections say the subsequent 5 years ought to shatter extra warmth information.
“Sunshine continues to dominate across France, maintaining oppressive and exhausting heat throughout the country,” Meteo France stated. Excessive situations are anticipated to final at the very least till the top of the week, with daytime highs above 40 levels Celsius (104 levels Fahrenheit) in lots of cities.
A drugstore signal reveals the temperature 43 levels Celsius (109,4 levels Fahrenheit) in Rennes, western France, Monday, June 22, 2026.
Jeremias Gonzalez/AP
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Jeremias Gonzalez/AP
“Further record-breaking temperatures are expected, including some that could surpass all previous records, regardless of the time of year,” Meteo France stated.
The warmth wave is exceptionally intense, coming very early in the summertime, “but with a still uncertain duration,” the climate service stated. It has already been in comparison with the August 2003 warmth wave, when the best temperatures in over half a century brought about an estimated 15,000 deaths, a lot of them older folks in flats and retirement houses with out air con.
France launched a warmth watch warning system after that warmth wave.
Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising twice as quick as the worldwide common because the Eighties, based on the European Union’s Copernicus Local weather Change Service.
During the last 4 years, greater than 200,000 folks throughout Europe died from heat-related causes, and most of these deaths had been preventable, the World Well being Group’s Europe workplace stated this month. The above-average temperatures may cause warmth exhaustion and life-threatening warmth stroke.
The EU monitoring company discovered that in Europe and globally, 2024 was the most popular 12 months on report and the continent skilled its second-highest variety of “heat stress” days.
Scientists warn that local weather change is exacerbating the frequency and depth of warmth and dryness, particularly in southeastern Europe, making the area extra susceptible to well being impacts and wildfires.
