Temperatures soar across the country, 16 departments on orange heatwave alert

The heatwave peaks across France on Saturday, with 16 departments still on orange heatwave alert for the Fête de la Musique, especially in the west of the country where temperatures are often expected to exceed 35°C for the second consecutive day.

The surge in temperatures recorded on Friday afternoon across a large western coastline is set to increase further, according to Météo-France forecasts, which predicts temperatures "above 30°C everywhere in the interior of the country." They are even expected to reach 35 to 38°C in the interior of Brittany and the Pays de la Loire, with a peak of 39°C expected in Poitou-Charentes and Lauragais, near Toulouse.

High temperatures will extend north of the Loire to the Paris Basin and eastwards, but also across the Channel to England.

While the orange heatwave alert remains in place in 14 departments ranging from Manche to Charentes and from Morbihan to Indre-et-Loire, as well as in Rhône and Isère, for all of Saturday, clouds and occasional showers will appear in some regions in the afternoon. Around sixty other departments have been placed on yellow heatwave alert for Saturday, the hottest day of the week, and six for thunderstorms.

According to Jérôme Lecou, ​​a forecaster at Météo-France, "we will start to see a slight cooling" on Saturday evening "with the warning being lifted on Sunday" and heat confined on Monday "more to the southern regions" .

While waiting for this early heatwave to end, a number of towns have announced that they will leave parks and gardens open all night at least until Sunday to allow residents to cool off , like Tours and Rennes.

The Gironde region was on yellow alert on Friday, but it was still 36°C at around 7 p.m. in Bordeaux, where tens of thousands of visitors are expected until Sunday for the "Bordeaux celebrates wine" festival. In the afternoon, participants huddled in the shade of trees and parasols, avoiding the overheated stone quays of the Garonne as much as possible.

"I alternate between a glass of wine and a glass of water," jokes Kerry Lamsdale, a 65-year-old British retiree from Deux-Sèvres, ice cream cone in hand. Pascal Spinat, a 47-year-old IT specialist living in Pau, had equipped himself with a straw hat "with a wide brim to avoid burning myself, quite simply." Under a blazing sun, with unusually warm nighttime temperatures, schools, retirement homes, communities and businesses are having to adapt in all the affected areas.

In Toulouse, pedestrians were fleeing the heat, particularly in the Place du Capitole, where large shade structures can reduce the heat by an average of 5°C, according to the town hall. EDF, for its part, is anticipating possible production cuts at the Bugey nuclear power plant (Ain) next week due to the high temperatures of the Rhône River, which cools the facility.

Several departments issued ozone pollution alerts on Saturday, including in the Île-de-France, Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur, and Occitanie regions. In Lorient (Morbihan), the metropolitan area decided to make public transport free, and the prefecture ordered the speed limit on Morbihan's national roads to be reduced to 90 km/h starting Friday at 8 p.m. due to this pollution.

This is the 50th heatwave recorded by Météo-France since 1947, and among the earliest. "Twenty-five were observed between 1947 and 2010" and "25 already between 2011 and 2025 ," which "clearly demonstrates the acceleration" in frequency against a backdrop of global warming, notes Loriane Baté, a climatologist at Météo-France.

Metropolitan France has already warmed by at least 1.7°C compared to the pre-industrial era, before the massive combustion of coal, oil, and gas, and governments are preparing for a 4°C increase by the end of the century. Global warming is making heatwaves earlier and later, more frequent, longer, and more intense.