Power Outage Leaves 68,000 Households Without Electricity in Northwestern France

A power outage linked to extreme temperatures left around 68,000 households without electricity in northwestern France on Wednesday. The failure struck a transformer on the grid in the commune of Ergue-Gaberic near Quimper in the coastal department of Finistere around 9:00 pm on Tuesday. No injuries were reported.

Up to 106,000 clients of the French power network had lost service by late Tuesday. Grid operator RTE said technical constraints prevent reconnection during the day on Wednesday, with full restoration possible only by the end of Wednesday at the earliest. Teams from RTE and Enedis worked through the night.

Finistere is one of 58 departments placed under the highest red alert for extreme heat on Wednesday. Temperatures between 39 °C and 41 °C were forecast from Brittany to the Paris region. France recorded its hottest day ever on Tuesday, when the national thermal indicator reached 29.8 °C, surpassing the previous mark of 29.4 °C set in 2003 and 2019.

Meteo France stated the heatwave has reached a plateau of severity with unrelenting day-and-night temperatures. Further record-breaking readings are expected at individual stations. The Eiffel Tower closed in the afternoon rather than late at night.

The Louvre museum closed two hours earlier than usual from Wednesday through Saturday. France has recorded 40 drowning deaths in the past week as people sought relief in rivers and other bodies of water. Most of those who drowned were young, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said.