Our European community affairs correspondent, Ashifa Kassam, has filed a report about the 40 people who are reported to have drowned while swimming in unsupervised areas across France in recent days. Here is an extract from her story:
“There is a tragic scourge of drownings,” the French prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said on Tuesday. “The latest figures we’ve received are 40 deaths since 18 June. Most of the victims are young people.”
Lecornu was preparing to chair a crisis meeting with ministers to address the ferocious early summer heatwave that has left parts of western France bracing for temperatures of up to 43C (109F).
“We’re experiencing an episode of exceptional intensity,” Lecornu said. “Every day and every night, local and national temperature records are being broken.”
The national weather service, Météo-France, said 54 departments had been placed under a red heatwave alert as “oppressive and exhausting” heat smothered about half of the country.
It said overnight temperatures were the hottest since record-keeping began in 1947.
Early on Tuesday, France’s national heat index, an average of the day and night-time highs measured at 30 weather stations across France, reached a record 21.6C, according to preliminary figures. The previous record of 21.4C was set on 25 July 2019.