France heatwave’s first major outage leaves 68,000 homes without power

Europe braced Wednesday for another day of an unprecedented heatwave that has smashed records in many countries and sent air conditioner sales zooming in a continent unused and ill-equipped to handle searing heat.

France hits record-breaking June heat as punishing temperatures put the UK and elsewhere in Europe under alert

France's national temperature indicator — an average of daytime and nighttime temperatures across 30 stations — reached 29.8C on Tuesday, the hottest since measurements began in 1947.

Millions of people across Europe are sweltering under an early-season heat wave this week as temperatures climb to unusually high levels.