France reports 1,000 excess deaths in record heatwave

France recorded about 1,000 additional deaths since June 24 as a record-breaking heatwave gripped the country. Public Health France said the toll was provisional and likely an underestimate. The agency said 85 percent of the deaths involved people aged 65 and older, while the increase was most pronounced in regions under red heat alerts.

The surge forced authorities to cancel or postpone several events to avoid overloading hospitals already near breaking point, especially in the Paris region. Schools, trains and sporting events were also disrupted as the hottest air moved eastward and some areas came out of red alert.

France’s current alarm system traces back to the 2003 heatwave, when extreme temperatures caused an estimated 15,000 deaths and drove the creation of the country’s heat-watch warnings.

Hotter summers have been linked to fossil-fuel-driven climate change across Europe. A rapid attribution study by Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine estimated that climate change nearly tripled heat-related deaths in an early-summer event across 12 European cities, with about 2,300 heat deaths from June 23 to July 2, 2025, including 235 climate-change-attributable deaths in Paris.

The first heatwave of summer 2025 ran from June 19 to July 6, affected 60 mainland departments covering 74 percent of the mainland population, and produced at least 480 excess deaths in those areas. Early onset reduced acclimatization and exposed people at school and at work. Public Health France compared that episode with the early heatwaves of June 2019 and 2022, while warning that direct comparisons are difficult because the geography and vulnerability were different.