A large part of France, with the exception of the western fringe, faces another day of heatwave on Wednesday, July 2, 2025, with peaks of 39°C, continuing two weeks of a national heatwave that will already go down in history for its precocity, duration, and record breaking events. The red heatwave alert now only concerns Aube, Yonne, Loiret, and Cher, at this stage until 10:00 p.m., Météo-France reported in the wake of the outbreak. The departments of Île-de-France, Vienne, Indre, Indre-et-Loire, and Loir-et-Cher have been downgraded to orange, an alert level that still affects more than half of the country on Wednesday.
In the rest of Europe, where extreme temperatures are raging from Portugal to Greece and as far away as the Netherlands, Germany will experience its peak heatwave on Wednesday, with 38°C expected in Berlin. The night, especially in cities where air circulates little and buildings release the heat accumulated during the day, was difficult for millions of French people. Around 5:00 a.m., "It was still around 25°C in the capital, as much as on the Mediterranean coasts", reports Météo-France.
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In Toulouse, the night was hard. Mélissa Lhermine, a psychologist, preferred to sleep in her office, "given that there is air conditioning". In eight years in his apartment, "It's the first time I've had to go and sleep somewhere else.", she breathes. And the day is still shaping up to be very difficult, with temperatures above 35°C across a large eastern half of the country and locally violent thunderstorms at the end of the day, which could justify orange alerts.
In Orléans, it was already 31°C at 11:00 a.m., and the Place du Martroi, where the statue of Joan of Arc stands, seemed quite empty, scorched by the sun. Only a few children, caps on their heads, were cooling off at the fountains. "It's too hot here. So we come with the children in the morning, because it's worse in the afternoon. But it's starting to take a long time!", said Sandrine, who did not wish to give her name.
Second hottest June
France entered the 14th consecutive day of a national heatwave on Wednesday, "remarkable for its duration", according to Météo-France, and equaling the length of that of June 1976. The record, three weeks, dates back to July 1983. The thermometer rose to an unprecedented level in several cities. This heat wave across the entire metropolis is the 50th since 1947, but 33 have been experienced since the 2000s, illustrating the increase in their frequency announced by climatologists due to the combustion of fossil fuels in the world.
June 2025 is the second hottest June on record "since the measurements began in 1900", announced Minister Pannier-Runacher on Wednesday, after June 2003, whose scorching summer is still remembered, with more than 70,000 premature deaths attributed to extreme heat.
"In the department, we have had around fifteen fires in recent days: with the heat, the machines overheat or it can be the blades that touch stones: this creates a spark that can set the whole field on fire.", he explained.
The health impact will take time to measure. In France, according to the Ministry of Health, an initial estimate of excess mortality will be available approximately two weeks after the end of the heatwave, but detailed data will not be available until the fall. Two people have died. "following heat-related illness", indicated the Minister of Ecological Transition on Wednesday, before her entourage clarified that there was at this stage "no official confirmation".
On the political side, the debate on air conditioning is on everyone's mind, in a country where one in four households was equipped with it in 2020. If the RN is calling for a "big plan for air conditioning", the left and the Macronists only make it a temporary solution for the most vulnerable and advocate the development of other measures such as greening or thermal insulation.
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