The Slow Burn

AUG. 4 The first records are broken in the southwest, where temperatures reach 41C in the Bordeaux region and on the Atlantic coast.

AUG. 10 Patrick Pelloux, head of France’s emergency physicians’ association, announces that some 50 people have died of heat-related illnesses in the Paris region in the past four days. He criticizes the General Directorate for Health for characterizing the deaths as natural.

AUG. 12 Pelloux says some 100 people across France have died from the heat.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, vacationing in Combloux, a village in Haute-Savoie, dismisses criticism of his handling of the crisis as “partisan polemics.” The heat wave peaks as thermometers hit 42.6C in the Provençal town of Orange.

AUG. 13 France’s biggest undertaker, General Funeral Services (PFG), announces a 37% increase in deaths from Aug. 4 to Aug. 10 compared with the same week last year.

AUG. 14 The Health Ministry puts the estimated death toll at 3,000. Raffarin cuts short his vacation and returns to Paris. Just before temperatures finally return to normal, the French government launches a nationwide emergency plan to provide extra hospital beds and staff.

AUG. 18 Health Minister Jean-François Mattei says the estimate of 5,000 heat- related deaths is “plausible.” Surgeon general Lucien Abenhaïm resigns, citing “the present controversies surrounding the handling of the epidemic linked to the heat wave,” but denies responsibility.

AUG. 20 France’s biggest chain of undertakers, OGF, says more than 10,000 people may have died in the heat wave. President Jacques Chirac returns from a two-week vacation in Canada.

AUG. 21 Chirac breaks his silence about the crisis, praising the government’s handling of the situation and urging French society to take better care of its aged and infirm.