France is currently facing a wave of heat, which will continue for several days, with temperatures that can reach 40 degrees Celsius On Sunday.
This heat episode extends to "a large part of the country" today, according to the national weather service, Météo-France, while on alert to the yellow heat level has placed the population in over half the country's area.
The majority of the French regions will currently face temperatures between 30 and 35 degrees Celsius, with a possible peak at 36-37 degrees Celsius in the south-west, the central and central-east of the country. Only Brittany, in western France, and the coastal regions of the Channel, north and northwest, have at present escaped this heat wave.
Tomorrow, Thursday, the number of geographical compartments concerned by vigilance in the yellow heat level will increase. And "it is possible to pass to the orange alert from Thursday noon to the areas extending from the Paris basin to the centre of the country," added Météo-France.
On Sunday when it is expected that for the music festival many bands and amateur musicians will take to the streets, several areas may face temperatures that will reach 40 degrees Celsius, forecast expert Christel Robert warned.
It is about the first wave of heat this year in France and 52nd since 1947, with their frequency increasing under the influence of climate change fuelled by the mass use of fossil fuels. In Europe, Spain and Britain are also faced with the threat of very high temperatures.
In late May, France faced unprecedented temperatures for this month, but this episode did not fall within the precise criteria of meteorologists to qualify as a wave.
The country faces "waves of heat increasingly, more and more and more intensely also, in an obvious sign of climate change," stressed Mathieu Sorel, a climateist at Météo-France.