France on alert as Europe bakes in 40C heatwave

France is putting emergency services and military forces on wildfire alert, restricting public alcohol consumption and cancelling some outdoor sporting events to cope with a heatwave baking parts of Europe.

About a third of France is under the national weather service’s heat red alert and temperatures are high nationwide, with 40C likely to be reached on Sunday while Monday could be even hotter.

The Eiffel Tower and other Paris venues have set up misting stations to cool crowds, among a raft of measures announced by national and local authorities to minimise risks.

More than 200,000 people across Europe have died from heat-related causes over the last four years, and the World Health Organisation’s Europe office has said most of the fatalities were preventable.

More above-average temperatures are expected this summer, which can cause heat exhaustion and life-threatening heat stroke.

WHO’s Europe office has called for countries and institutions to implement heat plans, such as opening cooling centres, or introducing breaks or flexible shifts that enable workers to stay out of the midday sun.

France’s annual Music Day on Sunday is a particular concern for authorities. The nationwide summer solstice celebration involves thousands of concerts in village squares, rave venues and Paris clubs, bringing communities together and increasingly drawing international visitors.

The government has ordered organisers of Music Day events to limit alcohol use to “preserve emergency services and allow medics to concentrate on taking care of the most vulnerable”.

Authorities are notably worried about people living in the baking streets, and elderly people in nursing homes or isolated in their homes. About 15,000 older people died in a 2003 heatwave that became a reckoning for France.

The government announced on Saturday reinforced wildfire readiness and ordered tightened surveillance of water supplies to France’s many nuclear reactors.

Schools will only be closed as a last recourse, the government said, though end-of-year exams held in the afternoons may be delayed until the following morning or otherwise rearranged.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu convened a government heat crisis meeting on Saturday and plans another one on Sunday, in the face of what the national weather service called a “widespread, long-lasting and intense” hot spell.

Mr Lecornu ordered government ministers to plan for better adapting France to heat-waves in the future – including “via air conditioning, if necessary”.