PARIS (AP) — France gritted its teeth Monday for a week of record-busting temperatures, sweltering in a heat wave combining daytime highs above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and sleep-robbing sweaty nights.
The national weather service, Meteo France, said most of the country — the largest in the European Union — is entering unrelenting conditions that aren't forecast to ease before Friday.
Meteo France called the heat wave exceptionally intense, "similar to the August 2003 heat wave, but with a still uncertain duration." France introduced a heat watch warning system after that heat wave, when the highest temperatures in over half a century caused an estimated 15,000 deaths, many of older people in apartments and retirement homes without air conditioning.
