Météo-France confirmed that Tuesday, 23 June 2026, was the hottest day in French meteorological history, with a nationwide mean temperature of 29.8 °C and peaks above 44 °C in the southwest. Thirty-one departments were placed on red heat alert, forcing schools to close and prompting the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs to issue travel-health advisories in multiple languages. Rail infrastructure suffered immediate strain. SNCF imposed speed restrictions on the TGV Atlantique line, extending Bordeaux–Paris journeys by up to 50 minutes, while regional TER services in Nouvelle-Aquitaine were cut by 40 %. Paris airports activated extreme-weather plans: at Charles-de-Gaulle, aircraft refuelling was paused for short periods when tarmac temperatures exceeded safe limits for ground crews. The heat also affected immigration processing. At Orly, automated passport-gates were shut down for part of the afternoon after internal sensors overheated, shifting all arrivals to manual booths and adding 45-minute waits for non-EU passengers. Prefectures in Marseille and Toulouse announced they would suspend in-person visa appointments between 14:00 and 17:00 until the alert level drops. Urban authorities turned exhibition centres and cinemas into “cool rooms” open to tourists and migrant workers without air-conditioned housing. Expat-support firms urged employers to distribute heat-safety leaflets in multiple languages and to review insurance coverage for heat-related illness among assignees. Climate scientists at CNRS warned that events of this magnitude—previously expected once a century—could occur every five years by 2040, raising long-term questions about France’s transport resilience. The government is fast-tracking a €1.2 billion programme to reinforce overhead-line equipment and install additional shade structures at passport-control queues in exposed regional airports.
Source: Météo-France
