More than 5,000 people died due to heat in France during the summer of 2023, marked by heatwaves later than normal, the Public Health Agency announced on Thursday. “Three out of 100 deaths observed during the summer are attributable to heat, which represents a little more than 5,000 deaths”, mainly among those over 75, summarized Guillaume Boulanger, researcher at Public Health France, at a press conference. This estimate – which stands at precisely 5,167 deaths – concerns the entire summer of 2023 and not only the four heatwave episodes. Over these periods alone, around 1,500 deaths are attributed to heat, or one in ten.
This summer remains, despite long periods of gloomy weather, the fourth hottest ever observed in France – the first measurements dating back to 1900 – in a context marked by a global acceleration of heatwaves against a backdrop of global warming. The heatwaves of 2023 were particularly notable for the late nature of two of them: the longest in August, then a last one in September. As measured by Public Health France, heat-related mortality is at one of the highest levels in recent years. It is only less than the 7,000 deaths recorded the previous year, in 2022, and remains far from the 15,000 deaths attributed to the exceptional heatwave of 2003.
As always, the majority of deaths concern the oldest. Over the entire summer, some 3,700 heat-related deaths affected those over 75. But “everyone is affected”, recalled Caroline Semaille, Director General of Public Health France. Around ten deaths at work are considered, after a census by the Labor Inspectorate, as possibly being linked to heat. But this figure is probably underestimated, as the agency’s researchers pointed out. And relatively young people can also be at risk because of the lack of insulation in their homes, or the practice of poorly supervised sports, the agency stressed.