The government is on alert. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has decided, in the face of the heat wave which is raging in part of France, to activate an interministerial crisis unit which will be held this Thursday, August 17 at 5 p.m., indicated Matignon.
The cell will be chaired, from the Ministry of the Interior Place Beauvau, by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Jean-Denis Combrexelle. His counterparts from the main ministries concerned will participate (Interior, Health, Solidarity, Agriculture, Transport) as well as the prefects and services of the departments concerned, said Matignon.
A national heat wave management plan had already been presented in early June by the Minister for Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, to deal with all the consequences linked to heat waves.
heat dome
For several days, the thermometer has been steadily rising in the center-east of the metropolis. And France could know in the coming days its most intense heat episode of the summer and one of the latest ever recorded, according to Météo-France. Seven departments (Loire, Haute-Loire, Ain, Isère, Rhône, Savoie and Haute-Savoie) are currently on heatwave orange vigilance. Temperatures above 30 degrees are expected over a large part of the south of the country and as far as the Rhone Valley, with peaks that can reach 35 to 37 degrees.
From the weekend, even warmer air will rise from the south, leading to the establishment of a heat dome. The high anticyclonic pressures will then form a kind of cover, trapping the hot air and intensifying it over the days.
“These high temperatures promise to be lasting, with peaks close to 40°C in the Mediterranean South and in the Rhône Valley from this weekend”, indicates Météo-France. “The heat will then overflow into the regions further north, from the Centre-Val de Loire to the North-East via the Paris basin where we can reach 35°C,” adds the weather forecasting institute. The peak of intensity is expected early next week, Monday and Tuesday, and temperatures are not expected to drop “until the middle or even the end of next week”
At least 30 excess deaths during second July heat wave
A phenomenon whose frequency is amplified by global warming, a heat wave is defined by a period of prolonged heat without interruption, day and night, for several days. To qualify as a “heat wave”, the national thermal indicator (average of daily measurements of average air temperature at 30 weather stations) must be greater than or equal to 25.3°C for one day, must remain at above 23.4°C for at least the next two days, and must not drop below 22.4°C. In France, heat episodes occurring after August 15 are rather rare: six have occurred since 1947, all in the 21st century (2001, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2016 and 2017).
Public Health France also announced Thursday that at least 30 more deaths than normal had occurred in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur region, during the heat wave episode from July 17 to 26. During the first heat wave, from July 7 to 13, “at least 80 excess deaths from all causes” were estimated in the twenty departments concerned. During last year’s heat waves, more than 61,000 deaths were attributed to heat in Europe, including 4,807 in France.