Europe Grapples with Record Heatwave, Health Warnings Intensify

After days of record-breaking temperatures in France, officials have warned people to adjust their behaviour, with Health Minister Stéphanie Rist saying there were risks to young people as well as the elderly.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the health alert level was being raised to its highest, to boost hospital staffing and protect the vulnerable.

Heatwave conditions that have left Spain, the UK and France sweltering for days are set to shift to the east, with forecasters in Germany and the Czech Republic warning of extreme conditions.

Temperatures in Germany could hit 40C in some western and south-western areas on Thursday, and across the country on Friday. An extreme weather warning is now in place in much of the Czech Republic.

United Nations climate change chief Simon Stiell has said "Europe's savage heatwave has the fingerprints of the climate crisis all over it", and he has called for "a faster shift to renewables, protecting forests and boosting climate resilience".

After France recorded its hottest day on Wednesday for the second day in a row, records continue to be broken. Météo-France said the average minimum temperature reached 22C on Wednesday night. Nantes saw 27.2C in the north-west.

France's health minister said "young people are also suffering from cardiac arrests". The ambulance service in Paris had seen four times more cardiac arrests than normal over a 24-hour period, said Rist, while stressing there were no confirmed figures for the number of deaths linked to the heatwave.

Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said the mortality rate was on the rise in the capital.

"We must not believe we are invulnerable," he told French TV. "I am thinking especially about the youth... At about 19:30 last night... I saw 100 or so joggers on the street. Frankly, that's irresponsible."

"It's fine to take a couple of days off from exercising," he added.

Stéphanie Rist said everyone had to adjust their personal activity to the high temperatures: "Even if you are young and in good health with no underlying medical issues, this heat will affect you too."

Even cycling came with risks, she warned, from high temperatures that lasted a week, as people would start feeling faint and might fall and even end up in hospital.

Meanwhile, a three-year-old child has been found dead in a car in the Paris region, days after two young children were found dead in the family's car in the southern town of Carpentras.

In the north-western city of Rennes, the head of the Accident and Emergency department Professor Louis Soulas linked the deaths of five or six people in their homes in the region to the extreme temperatures.

Emergency services had gone to check in on them after they had failed to pick up their phones during welfare calls, said Soulas: "It's not just the very elderly; it's people aged 60 and up."

Rennes saw a record 40.6C on Monday, only for that to be broken by 41C the following day. The previous record dated back to 2022.

The region's intensive care units were "saturated," he warned. "We are truly at a peak of activity."

Sébastien Lecornu said France's Orsan health emergency plan was now moving to level three so the health system could "withstand the strain over time and protect the most vulnerable".

French teachers' unions are calling for a strike in response to "unacceptable working conditions" in the heat. They said that despite having called for mitigation measures to be taken "nothing was done" and the "health of staff, students and their working conditions are being jeopardised".

Three nuclear plants in France have gone offline due to the heat.

Some western regions are now bracing for huge thunderstorms from Thursday afternoon onwards.

Gusts of up to 110km/h (68mph) were expected on France's Atlantic coast, and the first day of the Garorock festival has been cancelled in the Lot-et-Garonne region - where temperatures could reach 42C.

Climate change is driving up temperatures around the world - but particularly in Europe. It is the fastest warming continent, heating up twice as fast as the global average, according to the Copernicus climate service.

This is causing increased summer heatwaves, greater pressure on Europe's water supply, and more intense wildfires. Last year, more than 1 million hectares burnt across Europe - a record level - with Spain particularly affected.

Although temperatures in Spain are set to peak at 38-39C in some areas on Thursday, forecasters say a cooler mass of Atlantic air is coming in, after the highest June temperatures were recorded this week, with 45.1C in the southern town of Andújar on Monday.

Spain's MoMo monitoring system for reporting temperature-related deaths, external has counted 213 fatalities between Sunday and Wednesday that could be linked to the heat, including 95 on Wednesday alone.

Weekend temperatures could also hit 40C in the Austrian capital Vienna, and a code red comes into effect in eight out of 12 provinces in the Netherlands from midnight on Thursday local time, with the chance of 39C in localised eastern areas.

The UK's Met Office has extended its red extreme temperatures warning until Friday evening, for parts of London and south-eastern England.

In Italy, Florence's Uffizi museum has halted ticket sales until 28 June, and only those with a previous booking will be allowed in.

Management said the air conditioning system could not cope with the high flow of visitors and the extreme temperatures, which reached 32C inside the museum on Wednesday.

Italians have been experiencing high temperatures since the start of this week - but the peak of the heat is expected for Monday, when 40C are expected in various northern regions.

Night-time temperatures in those areas might not drop below 29C.

"Gone are last century's June days of 32C daytime temperatures and cool 17C nights," forecaster Lorenzo Tedici told Italian media.

"We have become so accustomed to excess that, paradoxically, today we welcome a forecast of 34C as good news."