A blistering and prolonged heatwave gripping much of Europe has been linked to more than 1,300 excess deaths, according to the World Health Organization, with French public health officials reporting that around 1,000 of those fatalities occurred in France since 24 June. The heat, which began baking the continent on 20 June, has shattered national temperature records and placed immense strain on health services and infrastructure from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean.

In its preliminary analysis released on Sunday, Santé publique France said daily mortality spiked sharply during the peak of the heatwave: more than 1,200 deaths were registered on 24 June, followed by over 1,400 on each of the following two days, compared with a baseline of 900 to 1,000 daily deaths in April and May. The agency stressed that 85 per cent of those who died were aged 65 or older, and that the sharpest increase was among people found dead at home — up by about 40 per cent — particularly in the Île-de-France region around Paris. These figures, drawn from electronic death certificates covering roughly 60 per cent of national mortality, are "non-consolidated" and likely to be revised upward, the authority cautioned.

Across the continent, temperature records toppled in quick succession. Germany registered a daytime high of 41.5°C in Saxony-Anhalt on Saturday and a nighttime low of 29.4°C in Saxony, both provisional records, while Denmark recorded 37°C, its highest since measurements began in 1874. The Czech Republic saw 41.1°C north of Prague. Switzerland's Basel broke its June record for the third day running. The searing heat buckled motorways, deformed railway lines, and forced nuclear plants in Hungary and Switzerland to cut output because river cooling water grew too warm. In Berlin, police deployed water cannon normally used for crowd control to spray cooling mist on residents, and emergency services reported a surge in heat-related calls.

By Sunday, the heat had begun to ease in France and was shifting eastwards, with an estimated 191 million people still enduring temperatures above 35°C, mainly in Germany, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist warned that the health effects "may last up to 10 days" after the weather breaks, and the head of emergencies at Paris's Pompidou hospital said the final toll would "probably be very, very heavy". The World Health Organization's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, noted that Europe is warming at twice the global average and that heatwaves once considered "once-in-a-generation" now occur almost annually. Scientists from the World Weather Attribution group said the extreme heat would have been "virtually impossible" without human-driven climate change.