Day 2944 (Monday) 30th June 2025

This is Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild in Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat

and this is Eze Village.

 

As always on a Monday here is What’s happening in France this week. The Local France.

France's Melvine Malard celebrates after scoring France's fifth and her hatrick during awomen's international friendly between France and Belgium in Valenciennes, northern France. Les Bleues kick off their Euro 2025 challenge in Zurich on Saturday. (Photo by FRANCOIS LO PRESTI / AFP)

A changing of the month brings a raft of early changes, festival season really gets going as schools break up for the summer – bringing strikes, and the first heavy traffic weekends of the season.

Tuesday

Smoking ban – A nationwide ban on smoking in all outdoor places that can be accessed by children, including beaches, parks and bus stops – but not café terraces – comes into force.

Gas – Gas prices will rise slightly for households that use it for hot water and cooking.

Medical fees – A second tranche of fee increases for certain medical appointments take effect.

Public transport – The south-eastern city of Nice will make public transport free for under-11s.

Motorway walkout – employees of Vinci, one of the companies that runs the French motorway network, have filed strike notices starting from July 1st and covering the entire summer holiday period, especially on the A8 in southern France, in a dispute about working conditions and lay-offs.

Parliament – MPs usually break up for the summer at the end of June, but they will remain in Paris for a while longer after the President convened, by decree, an extraordinary session.

Prime minister François Bayrou has promised that he will present detailed plans for the 2026 budget that will tackle France's soaring deficit “by early July”. First, however, he and his government have to survive two censure motions.

Heat help – Employers are required to take additional measures to protect staff from heat-related risks.

Wednesday

Festival de Carcassonne – The annual festival of music, theatre, arts, dance, comedy and cinema – all set against the dramatic backdrop of the famous citadel – gets under way. Isabelle Adjani, Alanis Morrissette, Robert Plant, Judas Priest and surprise hit of last year’s Olympic Games opening ceremony Gojira are all slated to perform across several weeks.

Thursday

Strike – two air traffic controllers'unions have issued strike notices for July - the UNSA-ICNA union has filed  a two-day strike notice for Thursday, July 3rd, and Friday, July 4th. The CGT union, which represents around 15 percent of air traffic controllers, will join in the Thursday walkout only. 

Petrolheads assemble – The four-day Le Mans Classic meeting, at which retro cars race on the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans circuit, opens.

Friday

Exam results – Nerves ramped up to the max as the results of this year’s baccalauréat exams are due to be published – prompting a rush to the Parcoursup website as university offers are accepted and rejected. Brevet results come out next week.

Schools’ out – Schools in France break-up for the long summer holidays. The children are now off until September 1st.

Fireworks – Not satisfied with the glitz and glamour of its Film Festival in May, Cannes turns on the lights again for six nights of music and fireworks in its six-week Pyrotechnic Art Festival, starting tonight. 

Saturday 

Sport I – It’s the first Test of France’s senior men’s rugby tour of New Zealand, in Dunedin.

Travel trouble  – The first nationwide red travel warning of the summer, as the first families make their annual seasonal getaway. Roads watchdog Bison Futé has flagged every weekend of July as having ‘very difficult’ or ‘extremely difficult’ conditions on the country’s roads as holidaymakers head out – and home.

Sport II – The 2025 Tour de France sets off from Lille. After winding its way around the country, it returns – after a year away because of the Olympics – to its traditional finish in Paris on July 27th.

In Seine swimming – Weather and water conditions permitting, Parisians and tourists will be able to dive into three dedicated sections of the river Seine in the capital from today, according to authorities.

Sport III – Les Bleues’ opening Group D match of Euro 2025 – against England – kicks off in Zurich. They will also face Wales and Netherlands as they seek to finish in the top two of the group and qualify for the quarter-finals of the women's championship.

How hot will it get in France this summer?

Dried out wetland in front of the French southern city of Montpellier, pictured in 2021: Photo: AFP

Heatwaves are getting more frequent and more intense in France as the planet warms - but how high can we expect the temperatures to get in the summer of 2025?

France is currently experiencing its first heatwave of the summer, with temperatures expected to peak over the weekend - but what can we expect for the rest of the summer?

The French weather forecaster Météo France's overall prediction for the summer is that temperatures will be above seasonal averages.

We’re most likely in for a “warmer than normal” summer in France in 2025, particularly in Corsica, Météo-France said.

According to the numbers, there’s a 50 percent chance that June, July and August will see above average temperatures, compared to a 20 percent chance that the next three months will be cooler than usual.

They add, however, that heatwaves cannot be forecast more than a week in advance, and neither can precise temperatures.

It's also worth noting that France is a big country and has a wide variation in weather between the beaches of northern Brittany and the plains of the southern départements like Var and Hérault (which currently holds the record for France's hottest ever recorded temperature). 

Likewise, cooler temperatures are found at higher elevations and France has a good selection of mountains. 

With all those caveats in mind - what sort of temperatures are we talking about? 

According to Météo France the average temperature for the summer (which they count as June 1st st- August 31) is 20.4C. However, that's a long term average running from 1900 and temperatures are steadily rising - the five hottest summers recorded since 1900 are; 2003, 2022, 2018, 2023 and 2019.

The heatwave of 2003 was extremely severe and is estimated to have caused at least 15,000 deaths. The summer of 2019 had heatwaves that were hotter but shorter than 2003 and that - coupled with improvements in local authority planning and emergency response - saw a much lower death toll.

There are, however, wide regional variations - in a southern département such as Var, the average summer temperature is 29C, while in Brittany's Morbihan it's 18C. Bear in mind also that those are averages not peaks - throughout the south of France it's not unusual for the mercury to climb to 40C at least once during the summer.

If we're talking about records, the hottest temperature ever recorded in France is 46C, recorded in Veragues in Hérault, during the intense heatwaves of 2019. That year multiple local records fell, including in Paris which recorded its own hottest-ever temperature - 42.6C. 

As to whether those records will be broken this year - experts say it's too early to tell.

The unscientific among us note that the summers of 2024 and 2023 were quite cool - but that doesn't mean 2025 will be especially scorching. Thinking that it will be is the sort of logic that leads you to lose your shirt in the casino.

When it comes to longer term predictions, however, there are some people who are willing to get specific - such as the prediction that Paris will see temperatures of 50C by 2050. The city has already begun emergency planning exercises to deal with that sort of heat, and work including upgrading the electrical system so that scorching temperatures are not accompanied by blackouts.