Heatwave sparks health warnings across Europe

Women enjoy the sun as a pelican walks past in St James's Park in London, as a heatwave is predicted Tuesday, June 23, 2026.

Workers sweated in choking heat and pupils stayed home on Tuesday as an early-summer heatwave smothered much of Europe, with France suffering its hottest day on record.

Schools and tourist sites closed early and railways cancelled journeys as several countries issued red alerts for much of their territory in the record-breaking heat.

France had its hottest day since measurements began in 1947, the national weather agency said, after sweating through its hottest night ever recorded.

The national temperature indicator -- an average of daytime and nighttime temperatures across 30 stations -- reached 29.8C, Meteo-France said, citing provisional data.

Scientists have shown that recurring heatwaves are a clear marker of global warming, and warn they are set to become more frequent, longer and more intense, driven by humans’ burning of fossil fuels.

In Barcelona, which was spared the worst of the temperature rises, 76-year-old Jose Farre nevertheless said it made it harder for him to sleep and even breathe.

“I have a heart condition, I’m diabetic and I feel it a lot,” he said, after coming out in the cooler early hours to do his shopping.

Heat health danger

Nearly all of Spain was under a heat alert, with parts of the south and north of the country on the highest warning level for “extraordinary danger”, national weather agency AEMET said.

As in various countries, authorities there urged citizens to take extra care of vulnerable people, drink water and avoid exertion at the hottest hours.

But some workers said they had no choice but to sweat in the sun.

Removal man Valentin Fernandez told AFP he was having a “rotten time” trucking furniture and boxes in Madrid, where the temperature reached 38C.

“When the sun starts to hit you, you feel like dying. And inside the truck it’s twice as bad... it’s horrendous,” he said, sweat soaking his shirt and running off his nose.

A lack of air conditioning at some of Spain’s hospitals prompted the SATSE nurses union to issue a statement denouncing the conditions that put workers and patients at risk.

Temperatures “reach and exceed 30C in areas” of hospital facilities, it said, while noting authorities have only recommended that they “close the windows and lower the blinds as much as possible”.

Italy’s health ministry declared a red heatwave alert in 15 cities including Milan and Rome.

Blackouts struck Milan and Turin because of the spike in the use of air conditioning.

U.K. schools close

A massive front of hot air from North Africa was smothering western Europe, Sebastien Leas, a forecaster at France’s weather service Meteo-France, told AFP.

A cold front off Portugal was “acting like a heat pump, drawing up warm air”, he said.

“At altitude, high pressure systems exert pressure on this warm air mass, and when we compress a warm air mass, we actually make it even hotter.”

In England, dozens of schools said they would close early on Tuesday and remain shut for two more days.

“Most of our buildings cannot be cooled adequately and there is little shade outside,” one school in the southeastern county of Buckinghamshire said.

The U.K.’s Met Office weather agency issued a rare red heat warning -- for only the second time -- for parts of central and south England on Wednesday and Thursday.

Temperatures could soar to 40C, unprecedented for the time of the year -- a “sobering” prospect, according to Met Office chief scientist Stephen Belcher.

The railway line connecting northeast England to London issued a “do not travel” advisory.

‘Tragic’ drownings in France

Speaking at a crisis meeting, France’s Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu warned of “a tragic scourge of drownings”, saying 40 mostly young people had drowned since June 18.

In Germany in Monday police said five people had died in fatal swimming accidents over the weekend.

At one Paris school on Tuesday, parents taped survival blankets to windows to lower the temperature inside and pooled their money to buy shades for the playground.

The school received some fans, “but that doesn’t actually lower the temperature in the rooms,” said Gaelle Roubere, of the parents’ association at the Marsoulan primary school.

Workers at a site of automaker Stellantis near the French city of Mulhouse said they would be ending their shifts early from Tuesday to Sunday in protest at working conditions during the boiling hot weather.

“Temperatures in some workshops are close to 38–40C,” union representative Salah Keltoumi said. “You’re there assembling parts, but with people who turned up exhausted because they couldn’t sleep properly the night before.”

Austria, Poland, Hungary and Croatia each issued heat warnings for parts of their territory. Emergency services in Hungary and Slovenia reported elderly people seeking help.

Croatian firefighters said they had brought several wildfires under control.