Deadly heatwaves force an ageing France to confront a hotter future

ORLEANS, France, July 21 - In nearly 25 years as a funeral director, Gautier Caton has never experienced anything like France's record-breaking late-June heatwave, when he rented five refrigerated containers to store bodies arriving at up to three times the normal rate.

A fifth-generation undertaker who grew up with coffins stacked in his parents' garage, Caton joined the family firm just weeks after an infamous 2003 heatwave that contributed to nearly 15,000 excess deaths across France. But this year, in a first, his Orléans funeral homes took in four bodies from overstretched firms in Paris, two hours' drive away.

"The Paris region was hit extremely hard, they were in crisis," he said. "And then it spread to us in Orléans, where our funeral facilities became severely overcrowded. It hit us with full force."

France's summer of 2026 has brought a grim encounter with three forces reshaping the country: a warming planet, an ageing population and a cash-strapped state struggling to fund the investments needed to adapt for the future.

Historic high temperatures, arriving ever-earlier in the year, have sparked unprecedented wildfires near Paris, shuttered schools and strained ill-equipped hospitals. The heat has also accelerated the demise of vulnerable old people living in stifling houses or care homes.

LESSONS LEARNED?

France announced 2,025 excess deaths during the late-June heatwave, when temperatures reached as high as 43.8 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit), with deaths up nearly 65% in Paris and almost 50% in the Centre-Val de Loire region where Caton's firm is based.

Those numbers are preliminary, based on around 60% of all deaths, and will likely rise with more complete data.

Francois Bourdillon, who led France's public-health agency from 2016 to 2019, said the country had come a long way since the 2003 heatwave. That event blindsided authorities and led to the creation of an alert system that mitigates the deadliest impacts of heatwaves with forecasting, public warnings and protections for vulnerable people.

But he said France had shirked addressing structural vulnerabilities in cities, hospitals, schools and care homes, and now needed to adopt a multi-year strategy, overseen by the prime minister's office, "to transform the country to deal with heat epidemics."

The issue was brought home to him when his sister-in-law recently underwent heart surgery in a top Paris hospital that lacked air conditioning, he said. His brother brought her a fan.

"The lesson of 2003: We were blind. We're no longer blind, that's certain. We have indicators and we sound the alarm," said Bourdillon.

"The lesson of 2026: Well, it's not enough. We are in a sort of dystopia in which we can deal with the effects of the heatwave ... but we forget the structural issues."

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has promised hundreds of millions of euros for cooling hospitals and nursing homes. Critics, including the Greens who launched a failed no-confidence measure over Lecornu's handling of the heatwave, say that's not enough.

But the government finds itself in a bind, having to invest for more extreme heat while also reducing the deficit and maintaining spending targets in areas like defence.

Matthieu Glachant, an environmental economics professor at Mines Paris - PSL, believed France's scorching summer has galvanized support for a more robust public response.

"The shocks we've experienced have been so severe that they will ... influence political decisions well beyond the next two months," he said.

WEATHER FORECASTS 'DEPRESS ME'

This month, Caton's team was called to a local nursing home, where a 94-year-old woman had died.

Staff had gathered wheelchair-bound residents in the TV room, the only area with air conditioning. White bedsheets hung from windows in the corridors to dull the sun's rays.

"I don't look at the weather forecast any more," said the home's chief nurse Beatrice Noyer. "It depresses me."

Residents had been kept cool with wet towels and water mists, she said, although some had required drips. Most spent their days in the cooled TV room, but others had refused to leave their bedrooms.

A poll published last year by France's Health Ministry found 41% of nearly 3,000 elderly care facilities surveyed did not have a communal air-conditioned space. Fewer than 10% had air conditioning in residents' rooms.

Fresh investment in staff and facilities was badly needed, Noyer said.

"But for now, nothing is moving, and I'm not sure it will," she said. "Elderly people do not matter to our politicians."

MORE DEATHS EXPECTED

A jump in excess deaths may prompt a political reaction.

The preliminary data showing 2,025 deaths lacks detail on deaths at home, a category which rose more than 91% between June 22 and 28. Caton said such deaths typically account for 25% of his firm's funerals, but during the heatwave they rose by 80%.

"They were not necessarily people who were completely ready to die or whose death was expected," Caton said. As a result, his firm was receiving the bodies of people who had died alone in their homes over two weeks ago as nobody had checked in on them.

"They die in total anonymity," he said. REUTERS