The heat wave intensifies in Europe with extreme temperatures of up to 43ºC in France

More than 1,300 of the country’s 60,000 schools and secondary centers remained closed this Monday, while another 4,000 adjusted their hours, according to the Ministry of Education.

Since last week, other educational centers have suggested parents keep their children at home or pick them up at lunchtime to get them out of stuffy classrooms.

The Paris region canceled one train in ten as a preventive measure. The day before, the SNCF company recommended “vulnerable” people avoid taking the train.

At the Saint Charles train station in Marseille, in southeastern France, authorities distributed bottles of water, fans and hats to passengers before boarding the train.

“You have to hydrate,” Mamone Outhaithany, a 31-year-old nurse, told AFP, who, with a hat on her head, joked that it will be “very practical” for playing the popular petanque.

Further north, in Belgium, this week could be “the hottest on record”, with an average temperature above 27°C, according to David Dehenauw of the IRM meteorological institute.

Some rush-hour trains were canceled on Monday and Tuesday in this small country, where this type of transport is widely used, said the SNCB, the national railway company.

The heat wave also hits the rest of Western Europe.

Spain faced its second day of a heat wave with values ​​of “between 5 and 10 degrees higher than those of this time in general,” according to Rubén del Campo, spokesperson for the Spanish meteorology agency Aemet.

The high temperatures already forced events such as the giant screen broadcast of the Spain-Saudi Arabia soccer match in the center of Madrid to be canceled on Sunday.

In Portugal, an orange alert was declared on Tuesday in inland areas, while the Netherlands is in “code yellow” with temperatures of up to 37ºC between now and the end of the week.

The United Kingdom declared the very rare red alert for “extreme heat” on Wednesday and Thursday in the south of the country.

In Germany the heat wave has increased the number of accidental drownings, with five over the weekend, police reported.