A new, stifling summer heat wave started on Friday noon with 11 departments in the south of France placed in orange “heat wave” vigilance, before extending to 17 departments on Saturday, and temperatures that can reach 41 ° C on Sunday.
The heat peak is expected at the start of next week on a large part of the country, after a weekend marked by temperatures between 34 ° C and 40 ° C in the south, up to 41 ° C according to Météo-France.
“The very high temperatures should intensify at the start of next week”, with the hottest days scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, before maintaining at least until the second half, the weather service said on Friday.
Since noon Friday, Météo-France has placed in a vigilance orange heat wave the Rhône, Loire, Isère, Drôme, Ardèche, Hautes-Pyrénées, Haute-Garonne, Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne, as well as Aveyron and Lot. On Saturday noon, vigilance will extend to the Dordogne, Aude, Puy-de-Dôme, Ain, Savoie and Haute-Savoie.
After a first stifling heat wave from June 19 to July 4, this episode is the 51st heat wave recorded in France since 1947, according to Météo-France.
– “Protect yourself” –
In Lyon, the French metropolis most often placed in heat wave, the inhabitants are preparing for this new outbreak of temperatures which should come close to 40 ° C this weekend.
Installed under a surge in Place Bellecour, Séléna – she did not want to give her name -, 22, made her break: “I try to protect myself from the sun”. Faced with the heat, this employee of the TCL transport network will often “squat” Lake Annecy, 150 km, in Haute-Savoie, a department also placed in orange alert from Saturday.
Working in the heat, Affi Bombakar, a server, is “accustomed”. “We have no choice, we are there to work,” explains the 30 -year -old, wiping the tables of a terrace.
Same observation for Sophie, 29, recruiter of donors for doctors of the World, work in the street “done for valiant” especially during “extreme temperatures”.
Living Lyon, she had to install an air conditioning at home, an “obligation” to keep her “sick cat”, despite her ecological reserves.
Others opt for mini-ventilators, stars of summer stars in stock in certain shops from the first heat wave.
– Drought and fires –
Météo-France also alerted to a “high” danger of forest fires on the Mediterranean periphery, while the fire of exceptional magnitude in the Aude was set Thursday evening after having traveled 17,000 hectares of vegetation and cost the life of a person.
This new heat wave, combined with very low precipitation, will aggravate the drought of the soil, already very marked in the southwest, where winegrowers are worried.
“If he’s hot like that for three weeks, everything will grill,” feared Emmanuelle Pivesan, leader of the Embroacher Clos Cavenac in Lot-et-Garonne on Thursday.
To anticipate “potential air conditioning breakdowns”, the SNCF deleted three round trips on old trains until Monday on the Bordeaux-Marseille line.
“There is an acceleration of the occurrence of heat waves over time. This trend is well linked to climate change, which has a strong impact on temperatures in France,” Lauriane Baté, climatologist at Météo-France said.
July 2025 was the third warmest month of July ever recorded on the planet with an average temperature upper 1.25 ° C to that of this same month in a pre-industrial era (1850-1900), the European Observatory Copernicus announced Thursday.
