The French Prime Minister, Sebastien Lecornuannounced this Friday the meeting of a crisis cell to address the heat wave, whose peak is expected on Sunday with millions of people in the streets for the Music Festival.
The cell will meet on Saturday, when more than 41 million French They will be in areas where the orange alert was decreed, the second most important in the country, in this second episode of heat wave this year.
The authorities’ concern is greater, since the peak is expected on Sunday during the popular Music Festival, which brings together millions of people to enjoy open-air concerts and drink alcohol.
Some French departments could pass “red alert due to heat wave” starting Sunday, with temperatures that will be around 30ºC at night and 40ºC during the day, warned the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez.
On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron called to “take care of the elderly, the most vulnerable” because “these are difficult days.”
Although the authorities canceled several sporting events and delayed the oral exams to obtain the high school diploma by a week, they will generally allow the festivities planned for the Music Festival. Some cities canceled them.
However, the Minister of Health, Stéphanie Rist, called for caution: “Alcohol, with the heat, causes very important consequences” for health, “we become double or triple dehydrated” and “we end up in the emergency room much faster.”
In Paris, the City Council expects about two million people in the streets, like last year, among them thousands of Britons who, motivated by social networks, are already preparing to travel to the capital to relive the “Festival” again.
“There was a neighborhood party on every corner,” explained Serpico Collins, 33, who lives in the London neighborhood of Camden and who on Sunday will once again walk the streets of Paris in search of live music and DJ sets from balconies.
France is experiencing its warmest spring since records began in 1900, with the national average temperature between March and May around 1°C above normal.
Scientists warn that heat waves in Europe are becoming more frequent as a result of climate change.
