{"id":73956,"date":"2026-09-03T20:33:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T20:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/73956\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T20:33:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T20:33:26","slug":"france-had-its-hottest-summer-since-records-began-over-a-century-ago-environment-minister-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/73956\/","title":{"rendered":"France had its hottest summer since records began over a century ago, environment minister says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">France, this year, recorded its hottest summer since measurements began more than a century ago, the environment minister Monique Barbut said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Speaking at a presentation of the climate report covering the months of June, July and August, Barbut said &#8220;We have experienced the hottest summer ever recorded since measurements began in 1900.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">According to national weather agency Meteo France, the summer of 2026 recorded an average temperature of 24 degrees Celsius covering day and nighttime. It&#8217;s 3.6 C above the normal average, and higher than in 2003, when temperatures were 2.7 C above normal.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A firefighter works to extinguish fires near Lege-Cap-Ferret, southwestern France, Friday, July 31, 2026. (AP Photo\/Emma Da Silva)\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"808\" height=\"539\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/euronews_us_news_articles_566\/b0cfb97853818024da41e0ed6873acc5.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A firefighter works to extinguish fires near Lege-Cap-Ferret, southwestern France, Friday, July 31, 2026. (AP Photo\/Emma Da Silva) &#8211; Emma Da Silva\/Copyright 2026 The AP. All rights reserved<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Firefighters relentlessly tackled wildfires through out the summer, even in normally cooler and wetter regions in the north and Brittany, as France experienced one of its driest years ever.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A historic fire devoured forests near Bordeaux and forced a quarter of a million people to evacuate from their homes.<\/p>\n<p>2026 Summer was second driest since records began<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Meteo France, said the summer was marked by very low rainfall, with a deficit of nearly 40%, making it the second driest since records began.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There was an unprecedented number of heatwave days, with 53 days across three episodes throughout the season, far exceeding the summer of 2022 with 33 days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Related<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Record-breaking ocean temperatures across all of mainland France and Corsica&#8217;s coastlines were recorded, and very hot spells occurred outside the summer months, such as last May and early September, which are a sign of climate change, Meteo France added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Millions in France, Italy, Spain, the UK and elsewhere across western and southern Europe experienced extreme temperatures this summer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Scientists say Europe is the world&#8217;s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing at twice the speed as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union&#8217;s Copernicus Climate Change Service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France, this year, recorded its hottest summer since measurements began more than a century ago, the environment minister&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2333,45298,20638,45296,45294,18054,45297,45295,5,6851,6995,12730],"class_list":["post-73956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-2333","tag-2026-summer","tag-ap","tag-ap-photo","tag-barbut","tag-el-nino","tag-el-ninos","tag-emma-da-silva","tag-france","tag-meteo-france","tag-monique-barbut","tag-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}