Europe is grappling with an unprecedented heatwave that has overwhelmed hospitals and prompted several countries to issue their first-ever red weather alerts, sparking fights over air conditioning units and leading Paris to impose an alcohol ban.
At least 101million Europeans have roasted for several days in temperatures of more than 35C, with an estimated few hundred people, including children, thought to have died as a result of heat-related illnesses and drownings while trying to cool off.
Scientists said in a study released Friday that climate change was ‘unequivocally’ responsible for the heat that broke records in Britain, France, Spain and Switzerland, while the Netherlands issued its first-ever red alert over heat.
As temperatures were expected to ease in western Europe from Friday, eastern Europe was on red alert, with the mercury set to climb.
In Germany, where temperatures were expected to hit 40C through the weekend, several outdoor events were cancelled and the rail operator advised avoiding travel.
With French hospitals overwhelmed, authorities took the rarely used step of banning evening alcohol sales and public consumption in Paris starting on Friday and in to the weekend.
Brawls also broke out in several stores selling affordable air conditioning units as sweltering shoppers scrambled to get their hands on the cooling appliances.
Footage from small retailers and large supermarkets across the country showed customers surging into stores while staff desperately pleaded for calm.
Swimmers sunbathe on the banks of the Canal Saint-Martin as France experiences a heatwave
People cool-off in front of a misting fan, next to the Colosseum, in Rome
People fighting for air conditioning units in France during the heatwave
Brawls broke out in several stores selling affordable air conditioning units
Huge queues of people attempting to storm a shop to buy aircon units in France
Employees of the public order office run over water hoses spilling water to provide relief from the summer heat as part of Cologne’s climate adaptation measures
Children cool off as they play football under a fountain next to the Manzanares river on June 23, 2026 in Madrid, Spain
Tourists rest in the shade in the town hall square in Palma de Mallorca
A woman walks her dog past water hoses spilling water to provide relief from the summer heat as part of Cologne’s climate adaptation measures
Paris police also asked the organisers of the Pride March that was scheduled for Saturday to call it off due to the exceptional heatwave. The march was subsequently postponed to September.
The police issued the same request to a music festival called Solidays, which has now been cancelled, and an athletics meeting at Stade Charlety. Both were expected to draw tens of thousands of people.
French and British health services reported a surge in emergency calls and visits as the merciless heat struck the elderly and the ill.
‘We are reaching a saturation point in hospital facilities,’ Paris police chief Patrice Faure said. ‘The number of hospitalisations keeps increasing.’
France saw a fourfold increase in emergency room visits for heat-related reasons and a surge of cardiac arrests, authorities said.
London Ambulance Service said the extreme heat on Wednesday had led to the highest number of life-threatening emergency calls in a day.
AFP calculations based on forecasts from the German weather service and 2025 population projections from the European Joint Research Centre indicated that more than 380 million people would face temperatures of over 30C.
The UN’s climate chief Simon Stiell said the heatwave – made worse by buildings and infrastructure unsuited to such temperatures – ‘has the fingerprints of the climate crisis all over it’.
‘Until humanity stops burning colossal amounts of coal, oil and gas, extreme heat will keep getting worse,’ he added.
Scientists said Friday that human-caused climate change was ‘unequivocally’ responsible for the intensity of the record-breaking heatwave, adding that it would have been ‘virtually impossible’ for such exceptional temperatures to occur in June fifty years ago.
A similar heatwave would have been 3.5C cooler during the day in June 1976, concluded the study by scientists from Europe, the United States and Britain.
The extreme heat has also led three nuclear reactors to close in France as high temperatures across the country reduced access to water needed to cool the plants.
The Golfech reactor has been closed since Monday, while the Nogent-sur-Seine nuclear power plant in Aube shut this morning due to ‘external causes related to the environment’.
Deaths are rising as a three-year-old boy was found dead in a car in the suburbs of Paris, where temperatures topped 40C on Wednesday, the latest such death.
The three-year-old’s parents found the boy unresponsive in the car outside their home, 45 minutes after sending the child to bed when he told them he was feeling tired.
The boy is believed to have locked himself in the vehicle, but the circumstances around how he ended up in the car in the first place are unclear.
The incident also brings the death toll of children dying in extreme weather conditions in France to three, after two siblings died after being left in a hot car earlier this week.
The brothers, aged just four and two, were found unresponsive by their mother, 33, on Monday afternoon in the town of Carpentras, southern France, in a car parked outside their grandmother’s house.
They suffered cardiac arrest as temperatures reached a sweltering 40C, and while services were called to the scene, resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful.
In the west coast town of Tranche-sur-Mer, an elderly British woman collapsed and died at the Baie D-Aunis campsite on Wednesday.
At least 40 people, many of them young, have drowned in France in the heatwave, according to the government.
A tourist cools his face with water from a public drinking fountain outside the Colosseum
A group of teenagers throw water at a young man driving a scooter next to the Canal Saint-Martin during a heatwave, in Paris
A stable worker bathes a horse in the Berounka River to cool it off during a heatwave in Prague
A member of the Hellfest festival crew sprays water to cool off festival goers during a heatwave
A teenager plays on the Passerelle de la Paix bridge, prior to jump in the Rhone river, in Lyon, southern France
A construction worker feels the heat in Turin, Italy during the heatwave
Swimmers dive into the Canal Saint-Martin, from an unapproved spot for swimming as France experiences a heatwave
In Spain, the MoMo monitoring system of mortality rates said 212 deaths between Sunday and Wednesday could be linked to the heat.
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported five deaths from the heatwave including two farmworkers and a builder.
The bodies of three young men were recovered from the Marchfeld Canal near Gerasdorf in Austria on Thursday, after they were initially reported missing.
The men, between 25 and their early 30s, are believed to have had an accident during a stand-up paddleboarding trip and drowned, according to Kronen Zeitung.
Authorities warned people to take extra care when swimming in unsupervised areas, such as rivers or lakes, following the deaths of at least 48 people in France over the past week.
French footballer Kenzo Kies has died from drowning in the Rhone River after he had gone for a swim to cool down from the blistering heat.
Kies, 21, who played for Guingamp in Ligue 2, was in a critical condition when he was pulled from the water on Monday, and later died in hospital.
Kies and three friends entered the river near Lyon. Three people were pulled to safety by emergency services, but Kies was the last to be found.
More than 1,000 schools in England have closed due to the heat, and many train services were cancelled, with passengers being urged to avoid nonessential travel in areas covered by the warning.
In France, Italy and Spain, more than 100 million people were warned to be extra vigilant about the dangers of the heat wave.
Meanwhile, the UK recorded its hottest June day on Wednesday, with 36.1 reported at Gosport in southern England.
The national weather forecaster issued a red alert for heat in much of central and southern England, as well as Wales.
The deputy director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, Samantha Burgess, said the hot weather was due to a ‘heat dome’ of trapped air from north Africa in a low-lying high-pressure system, preventing cooler air from moving in.
Polly Turton, head of climate action at NGO Shade the UK, said the situation was ‘the new normal’.
‘The sleepless nights we’re all experiencing, we are going to have to adapt to,’ she said, ‘At the moment, we are not a well-adapted UK by any means.’
