Forty drown across France in heatwave and parts of Spain above 30C at night

Tourists in Paris protect themselves from the sun under umbrellas on Tuesday. Photograph: Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Tourists in Paris protect themselves from the sun under umbrellas on Tuesday. Photograph: Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images Forty drown across France in heatwave and parts of Spain above 30C at night France has its hottest night on record, 15 Italian cities under red heat alert and UN chief says London is ‘cooking’ Europe heatwave live – latest updates Forty people have drowned while swimming in unsupervised areas across France in recent days, the prime minister has said, as people across the country sought respite from the record-breaking heatwave sweeping across much of Europe . “There is a tragic scourge of drownings,” Sébastien Lecornu said on Tuesday. “The latest figures we’ve received are 40 deaths since 18 June. Most of the victims are young people.” Lecornu was preparing to chair a crisis meeting with ministers to address the ferocious early summer heatwave that has left parts of western France bracing for temperatures of up to 43C (109F). “We’re experiencing an episode of exceptional intensity,” Lecornu said. “Every day and every night, local and national temperature records are being broken.” The national weather service, Météo-France, said 54 departments had been placed under a red heatwave alert as “oppressive and exhausting” heat smothered about half of the country. It said overnight temperatures were the hottest since record-keeping began in 1947. View image in fullscreen A dog walker cools off her charges in a mist fountain in central Paris. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images Early on Tuesday, France’s national heat index, an average of the day and night-time highs measured at 30 weather stations across France, reached a record 21.6C, according to preliminary figures. The previous record of 21.4C was set on 25 July 2019. Officials in the greater Paris region advised people to work from home as much as possible and avoid rail journeys. “The transport network comes under severe strain in periods of extreme heat … railways cannot withstand temperatures above 50 degrees,” the head of the Île-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, told journalists. Europe temperature map The heat, which on Monday forced the closure of about 1,350 schools and was believed to be linked to the deaths of two young children in their family car, is forecast to continue until the end of the week. “Further record-breaking temperatures are expected, including some that could surpass all previous records, regardless of the time of year,” Météo-France said. The sweltering temperatures extending across swathes of Europe are caused by what Clair Barnes, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, described as a bulging mass of hot air. View image in fullscreen A man walks past a window covered by an emergency blanket in Nantes, western France. Photograph: Sebastien Salom-Gomis/AFP/Getty Images “It’s drawing warm ai