Heatwave: “The jogging neighbor is as much in danger as the shut-in grandmother”

"Everyone is in danger," warned Clare Nullis, spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organization, in the midst of a heatwave on July 1. A week later, the heat dome receded: on July 8, the heatwave alert was lifted – Météo-France then reported 12 departments as yellow for thunderstorms, none as orange or red. In 2003, the heatwave swept across France in August; in 2025, the blaze ignited just two weeks after the June 21 solstice. This precocity is worth warning: by 2050, one in two Europeans will be living under severe heat stress.

Even today, the human toll of this heatwave remains unclear. Public Health France will not deliver its first estimate of excess mortality until the end of July and the Bayrou government's health minister, Catherine Vautrin, judges that "it is too early to make an assessment." However, two "official" deaths already appear in the bulletin, joined by the drowning, in Saint-Benoît (Vienne), of a 17-year-old high school student in the Clain, where swimming is prohibited. An analysis by the Grantham Institute, which has just been published, goes further: it already estimates the deaths due to climate change at 1,500 between June 23 and July 2 in 12 European cities, including 253 in Paris.

In the emergency room, the white coats recognize the silhouettes they saw in 2003: dehydrated seniors, heart failure patients, masons who "have no choice." The heat also hits quietly: on construction sites, through medications poorly absorbed in a dried-out body, through thermal shock when jumping into the water. On the transport side, the rails are expanding and the asphalt is melting.

Our first disruption is mental. The study I just published in Climate Policy with economists Dorothée Charlier and David Grover shows that out of 300 French people over 55 years old faced with 33°C then 36°C, those who say they are "in great shape" adopt approximately half as many protective measures (drinking, lightening their diet, seeking coolness) while prior good health is not enough to avoid heatstroke. Optimism anesthetizes, fear awakens. It is denial, not age, that constitutes the primary comorbidity: the dark humor of midday runners mainly covers up a misnamed anxiety.

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