France is enduring a late-summer heatwave that pushed temperatures above 42 °C on 12 August and forced the national weather agency to maintain its highest, red-level alert in the Aude, Isère, Rhône, Drôme and Ardèche departments until Thursday morning. Météo-France also placed 68 other departments on orange alert, warning of further peaks at 40–42 °C in the Centre-East and the Bourgogne region, and of tropical nights in the Rhône valley where night-time lows remain above 20 °C. The heat has already broken long-standing records, including 42.9 °C in Saint-Laurent-du-Pape (Ardèche) and 41.6 °C in Bordeaux, while Saint-Laurent-des-Sauvages in the Rhône exceeded 37 °C at 831 m altitude for the first time. Mountain areas at 1,000 m registered up to 35 °C, and sea-surface readings in parts of the western Mediterranean are on course to hit 30 °C, a level not seen since the 2003 heatwave. High temperatures are straining infrastructure. State rail operator SNCF has cancelled about 20 Intercités services on 12–13 August—roughly ten per day out of more than 15,000 trains in circulation—on the Paris-Clermont-Ferrand and Bordeaux-Marseille routes. Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said the pre-emptive move is meant to avoid air-conditioning failures in older rolling stock. Speed reductions and additional track inspections are also in place. Fire risk remains ‘elevated’ across Mediterranean coastal departments, the Auvergne and the Rhône valley, where 500 firefighters are still monitoring a previously contained blaze in the Aude. Climatologists at France’s Institut de recherche pour le développement note that such extreme events are consistent with warming projections, warning that today’s exceptional temperatures could become routine within two decades.