Overview

• Seventy-five departments remain under canicule alert on day seven of the second summer heatwave, with orange warnings set to cover about 80 by Friday.
• Météo-France forecasts a brief cooldown before temperatures climb back toward 40 °C over the weekend, prolonging health and safety advisories.
• EDF has cut output at the Golfech nuclear plant due to warm river water, while Île-de-France enforces traffic limits and ozone restrictions to curb pollution.
• The 16,000-hectare blaze in the Aude is largely contained but still smoldering as Montpellier authorities open a criminal investigation into its human origin.
• Climatologists link the extreme heat and wildfires to human-driven warming and warn that such compound heat-drought-fire events will grow more frequent and severe.