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Tragic new details have emerged about the death of a three-year-old boy who passed away in his family’s car during a heatwave that has scorched France.
France is once again facing searing conditions today having endured its hottest ever 24-hour period on Wednesday. Yesterday, temperatures climbed past 44C in Pissos in the country’s south-west.
The boy died on Wednesday evening when his parents and firefighters failed to resuscitate him in the town of Saint-Gratien, public prosecutor Guirec Le Bras said.
The mother was having a nap with the couple’s second child, an 18-month-old, while the father was working in a shed in the garden, he said, citing initial findings.
The father told his son to have a nap, but the child escaped his parents’ supervision for at least 45 minutes and climbed into the car, where the child lock was activated.
‘He then apparently shut himself in and became trapped in the vehicle before being found unconscious by his parents,’ Le Bras said.
The boy’s mother was heard screaming in horror for several minutes, neighbours told Le Parisien.
One said: ‘The mother screamed. It lasted about ten minutes. It was horrible.’
Europe has been scorched by the heat this week (Pictured: A man cools off in a fountain in Milan during the continent-wide heatwave)
Pedestrians cool off under a mist sprayer installed by Paris City Hall on the 45th edition of the Fete de la Musique and during a heatwave on June 21, 2026
Another said: ‘At first, I thought it was a woman being attacked.’
It was these awful screams that drew the attention of a nearby bus driver, who left his vehicle and tried to revive the boy before emergency services rushed to the scene.
A neighbour recalled: ‘We saw the mother screaming. Then she asked everyone to leave. She didn’t want people to see her like that.’
She was later taken to hospital in a state of shock.
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Julien Bachard, the mayor of Saint-Gratien, said: ‘We can only be saddened by the death of a child, especially one so young. A three-year-old child, it’s terrible. People are deeply moved. Our thoughts are with the family.’
The horrific deaths follow the passing of two young siblings who were left in a hot car earlier this week.
The brothers, aged just four and two, were found unresponsive by their mother, 33, on Monday afternoon in the town of Carpentras, southern France, in a car parked outside their grandmother’s house.
They suffered cardiac arrest as temperatures reached a sweltering 40C, and while services were called to the scene, resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful.
An elderly British woman died at a French campsite amid the scorching heat, as mercury rose to 41C in the French capital.
She fell ill while staying at the Baie D-aunis campsite with her husband, in the coastal town of Tranche-sur-Mer.
After she took ill, emergency services, including four ambulances and two police cars, were rushed to the scene.
At least 48 people have drowned across the country since the heatwave began with extreme heat closing nuclear reactors and triggering forest fires.
Meanwhile, the freak Saharan heat dome is causing chaos across the rest of Europe including in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and in Spain where 212 have died in three days.
Tourists and Parisians Cool Off at Eiffel Tower 42C expected towards temperature records in Paris, France on June 24, 2026
A person cools off at Trocadero fountain near the Eiffel Tower during a heat wave in Paris, Wednesday
Europe continues to grapple with a sweltering heatwave. Pictured: Lifeguards keep watch from their station over a packed lake beach during a heatwave at the Bordeaux Lac beach, in Bordeaux, south-western France
The heatwave is being driven by a weather pattern known as an Omega block, pushing temperatures as much as 18C above normal.
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The phenomenon resembles the shape of the Greek letter Omega, with a bulbous middle trapping in heat over regions for extended periods, with cooler weather on its fringes.
Weather agencies have warned that extreme heat could endanger lives as much of western Europe bakes under a ‘heat dome’.
France on Wednesday recorded the hottest day since measurements began in 1947, the national average temperature reaching 30C.
Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire earlier on Thursday reported that deaths were on the rise in the capital.
The Ministry of Health later confirmed that there had been 25 heat-related cardiac arrests in the last 24 hours in Paris.
The extreme heat has also led three nuclear reactors to close in France as high temperatures across the country reduced access to water needed to cool the plants.
The Golfech reactor has been closed since Monday, while the Nogent-sur-Seine nuclear power plant in Aube shut this morning due to ‘external causes related to the environment’.
A third was closed in the late morning in Bugey.
Forest fires also broke out in Spain and France.
Nearly 200 firefighters were deployed to put out flames spreading through the Landes de Gascogne pine forest in southwestern France.
In Spain’s Catalonia region, an inferno tore through 16 hectares of forest in Sant Quirze de Safaja.
At least 101 million people are expected to experience hot temperatures on Thursday, including 50 million in France.
The country has been the most impacted, where around 63 million people have experienced temperatures of more than 30C.
The heatwave has also been linked with 212 deaths in Spain between Sunday and Wednesday, estimates from a public institute show.
The MoMO monitoring system compiles daily death statistics in Spain and calculates the difference in mortality by comparing them with the levels forecast based on historical records.
Meanwhile, the UK recorded its hottest June day on Wednesday, with 36.1 reported at Gosport in southern England.
A British woman died at a French campsite as the country is gripped by soaring temperatures. Pictured: Baie D’aunis campsite, where the tragedy occurred
The windows of a Haussmann-style residential building are seen covered with emergency blankets to shield them from the sun as temperatures rise in Paris, during a heatwave affecting a majority of the country, France, June 25, 2026
A visitor cools off at a fan with a water misting system at the Red Bull Ring race track in Spielberg, Austria on June 25, ahead of the Formula One Austrian Grand Prix, where temeratures are to go over 30 degrees Celsius
People sit under umbrellas in a tourist boat during a heatwave on June 24, in Amsterdam, Netherlands
The national weather forecaster issued a red alert for heat in much of central and southern England, as well as Wales.
The bodies of three young men were recovered from the Marchfeld Canal near Gerasdorf in Austria on Thursday, after they were initially reported missing.
The men, between 25 and their early 30s, are believed to have had an accident during a stand-up paddleboarding trip and drowned, according to Kronen Zeitung.
Authorities warned people to take extra care when swimming in unsupervised areas, such as rivers or lakes, following the deaths of at least 48 people in France over the past week.
French footballer Kenzo Kies has died from drowning in the Rhone River after he had gone for a swim to cool down from the blistering heat.
Kies, 21, who played for Guingamp in Ligue 2, was in a critical condition when he was pulled from the water on Monday, and later died in hospital.
Kies and three friends entered the river near Lyon. Three people were pulled to safety by emergency services, but Kies was the last to be found.
More than 1,000 schools in England have closed due to the heat, and many train services were cancelled, with passengers being urged to avoid nonessential travel in areas covered by the warning.
In France, Italy and Spain, more than 100 million people were warned to be extra vigilant about the dangers of the heat wave.
With the mercury rising, many of France’s major attractions, including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum in Paris, have restricted visiting hours.
Schools and transportation schedules were also upended.
In Italy, 16 cities, including Rome, Milan, Florence and Turin, were under heat alerts.
Tourists in France have described what it’s like to holiday in the country’s extreme weather, saying they’re largely trapped indoors as they try and avoid the dangerous heatwave that has taken hold.
On Tuesday, temperatures climbed past 44C in the rural commune of Pissos in the country’s south-west as France endured its hottest day in history.
An hour north of Pissos in Bordeaux, one British woman told the Daily Mail that the popular tourist city feels ‘eerily deserted’ as people stay indoors or have already fled to the coast.
A photo of a normally packed square in Bordeaux’s old town taken on Thursday, when the weather in the city has risen to over 40 degrees
A pharmacy sign shows the temperature of 41 degrees Celsius in Bordeaux on Tuesday
A woman uses a hand fan to cool down in Bordeaux, southwestern France, earlier today
Museums with air con and ice cream shops are the only places experiencing a surge in business in Bordeaux. Pictured: La Maison du Glacier on Place Sainte-Pierre had queues around the block
The Miroir d’eau, Bordeaux’s largest reflecting pavement pool has become a late night attraction
London-based PR Tori Thomas, 38, has spent a month working remotely there, renting out a one-bed apartment in the city on Airbnb.
She described the sun in recent days as ‘unbearable’, saying: ‘It got progressively hotter through the weekend and by Sunday, people just weren’t going out.
‘Tuesday was the first day where it was unbearable to be outside. You couldn’t stand in the sunshine, basically. I ended up going to a museum in a WWII submarine bunker to keep cool.
Tori said the heat is so strong that standing outside in the sun for more than 10 minutes would likely make you feel ill, saying: ‘I’ve been going through six to eight big bottles of water every day.’
And the tarmac and slabs on the city’s pavements became so hot yesterday that the tourist said her flip flops became tacky, ‘melting onto the pavement’.
She added normally packed restaurant terraces and al fresco bar and cafe spaces were currently deserted: ‘Lots of restaurants are either closing early or not opening and, if they’re open, they’re only serving cold food – a) because no-one wants to eat anything hot and b) for the kitchen teams having to cook.’
