Heatwave forces school closures across France and Britain

France closed 845 schools and let about 1,800 others end classes early during a heatwave that put 49 departments under the country’s most extensive red alert to date. Météo-France forecast temperatures could reach 41C and estimated that nearly 35 million people lived in the affected departments, including almost 4 million aged 75 or older.

The Education Ministry outlined local responses ranging from shutting schools to postponing exams if conditions worsened. In Île-de-France, authorities set aside €1 million in emergency funding for exam centres to buy cooling equipment as the heatwave disrupted baccalaureate oral exams.

Staying open in overheated classrooms can erode attention, strain health and reduce attendance, while closing schools shifts the burden to parents who must find childcare on short notice. The ministry held emergency meetings, and President Emmanuel Macron urged the public to look out for elderly people, children and other vulnerable residents as the heat spread across the west coast, the centre and the south.

Britain faced a parallel strain as temperatures neared 40C and the Met Office issued rare extreme heat warnings. Some schools closed early or shut altogether, but many children had little relief at home because air conditioning remains uncommon there too. UK schools have low classroom ventilation rates and no requirement to routinely monitor air quality. British Progress policy research found very few schools with air conditioning.

The Climate Change Committee called for air conditioning in all schools within 25 years.