French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said on Friday that there were around 7,000 excess deaths recorded during the blistering heatwaves that hit the country this summer as of late July, adding that final data will be available in the coming weeks.
The country's health agency had estimated the excess deaths during the period between June 17 and July 2 at 5,764.
It is the highest excess mortality rate during a heatwave in France since a devastating episode of high temperatures in 2003, when 15,000 people died, they added.
France has recorded its hottest summer ever, joining Belgium, UK and Ireland as temperatures soar in Europe, the globe’s fastest-warming continent.
“We have just lived through the hottest summer ever recorded since measurements began in 1900,” French Environment Minister Monique Barbut said on Thursday at a presentation of the summer climate report.
France has endured multiple severe heatwaves this year, including one in late June that set a new intensity record. Another heatwave stretched from late July into August, matching a 23-day record previously set in 1983.
During this time, France was hit by several major wildfires, even in normally cooler and wetter regions.
According to the national weather agency Meteo France, the summer was marked by very low rainfall, with a deficit of nearly 40 percent, making it the second driest since records began.
“The summer of 2026 will go down in history,” Barbut said.
“The question we must now ask ourselves is how it will be remembered … As the first in a long series of summers that continue to break records. Or as a moment when we rose to the challenge of adaptation and mitigation,” by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, she added.
Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing at twice the speed as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
