Europe’s relentless heatwave has pushed France into uncharted territory in the midst of a record hot weather-ravaged heatwave that has led to the first major heat-related power outage in the country and left tens of thousands of homes without electricity. France had its hottest day of record heat in Paris and the blackout took place on the hottest day of record heat in France in years and the pressure on critical infrastructure is mounting on the continent’s aging infrastructure.
More than 68,000 households in the northwestern part of Finistere remained without power on Wednesday evening because of a transformer failure linked to exceptionally high temperatures. The outage took place late Tuesday evening in the commune of Ergue-Gaberic in the Brittany region, at the northern end of the province near Quimper.
It could be as many as 106,000 electricity customers were affected. Emergency repair teams from grid operators RTE and Enedis were working hard all night long to fix the problem, the government said, but they feared service would not be fully restored until the end of Wednesday.
The blackout took place during Europe’s hottest ever heatwave. France had its hottest day ever on Tuesday and the national temperature index was 29.8 degrees Celsius, surpassing previous records from the devastating heatwave in 2003 and 2019. Weather stations were experiencing temperatures up to 40 degrees Celsius, and forecasters warned that the temperature could be even higher in the coming days. Meteo France said some places might break all-time temperature records regardless of the season.
The weather has forced the authorities to take extraordinary measures. Fifty-eight French departments, including Finistere, were put on the highest red alert for extreme heat. The temperature was expected to be between 39°C and 41°C from Brittany to the Paris region.
It is also a factor that has disrupted daily life in the country and kept tourists away from major tourist destinations, including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum, while schools and transport services faced schedule changes to cope with the extreme weather.
But the heatwave is also taking a human toll beyond infrastructure problems. French authorities have reported 40 drowning deaths in the past week as people sought relief from the scorching temperatures in rivers, lakes, and other water bodies. Most were young people, officials said, and new warnings about the dangers of unsupervised swimming are being issued. The heatwave also hit workers in outdoor industries and some say that the temperatures have made working normally hard in the country.
Climate experts say the extraordinary heat is being driven by atmospheric patterns that trap hot air over large areas of Europe for extended periods. They say global warming is intensifying the frequency and severity of such events. Meteo France has said it is a “plateau of severity,” with high temperatures persisting both day and night. And with forecasts calling for little relief before the weekend, Europe is experiencing one of the most severe and disruptive heatwaves of modern times.
