Europe heatwave live: Forty people drown in France; Met Office warns UK temperatures could reach 39C
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- France has recorded 40 drownings since June 18, mostly young people, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Tuesday, as Météo-France placed 54 departments under red heatwave alerts with temperatures forecast to hit 43C.
- UK Met Office warned temperatures could reach 39C on Thursday in London or the South East — possibly higher — potentially breaking the June maximum record of 35.6C set in 1976 in Hampshire, while 29,074 lightning strikes hit southern England in the 24 hours before 9am Tuesday.
- UK schools are shutting en masse, with at least 100 closures in Somerset, 90 in Oxfordshire and 80+ in Gloucestershire; National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede called Victorian school buildings 'greenhouses' requiring 'urgent, massive capital investment' in cooling infrastructure.
- France has closed 1,800 schools entirely and shortened hours at 8,000 more, while the Louvre is closing at 4pm (instead of 6pm) Wednesday through Saturday, citing a building 'not sufficiently adapted to climate change' whose 73,000 square meters heat unevenly.
- The Netherlands deployed a gritting machine to spread salt on roads in Hilversum to cool the asphalt, activated a 'heat protocol' across six provinces, and opened cooling shelters in 12 Amsterdam locations including a supermarket and community farm.
- UK retailers reported surging demand: Currys saw a nearly 1,500% spike in fan searches and 3,500% rise in air conditioning searches; Tesco predicted 60% more ice sales; Aldi projected selling one million burgers and 500,000+ bottles of sun cream this week.
- The Cure are scheduled to play Blackweir Fields in Cardiff (35,000 capacity) Thursday evening during the red heat alert, with promoters Blackweir & Depot Live adding free water stations and welfare facilities, and advising sunscreen and hydration.
Why it matters: Europe's heatwave is forcing institutional improvisation on a continental scale: the Louvre is closing early citing climate-adaptation failures, the Netherlands is salting roads to cool them, and the UK is shuttering hundreds of schools. With 40 drownings in France — mostly young people — and June temperature records from 1976 expected to fall, public institutions are scrambling to cope with infrastructure never designed for these conditions.
