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France
In France, 14,802 people—mostly elderly—died from heat, according to the country's largest funeral service.[2] France does not commonly have very hot summers (seven days with temperatures of more than 40 °C (104 °F) were recorded in Auxerre, Yonne between July and August 2003), particularly in the northern areas[3]. As a consequence, most people do not know how to react to very high temperatures (for instance, with respect to rehydration), and most homes and retirement homes are not equipped with air conditioning. Furthermore, while there are contingency plans for a variety of catastrophes and natural events, high heat had never been considered a major hazard and so such plans for heat waves did not exist at the time.
The heat wave occurred in August, a month in which many people, including government ministers and physicians, are on holiday. Many bodies were not claimed for many weeks because relatives were on holiday. A refrigerated warehouse outside Paris was used by undertakers as they did not have enough space in their own facilities. On 3 September 2003, fifty-seven bodies still left unclaimed in the Paris area were buried.
That shortcomings of the nation's health system could allow such a death toll is a matter of controversy in France. The administration of President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin laid the blame on families who had left their elderly behind without caring for them, the 35-hour workweek, which affected the amount of time doctors could work and family practitioners vacationing in August. Many companies traditionally closed in August, so people had no choice about when to vacation. Family doctors were still in the habit of vacationing at the same time.
The opposition, as well as many of the editorials of the local press, have blamed the administration. Many blamed Health Minister Jean-François Mattei for failing to return from his vacation when the heat wave became serious, and his aides for blocking emergency measures in public hospitals (such as the recalling of physicians). A particularly vocal critic was Dr. Patrick Pelloux, head of the union of emergency physicians, who blamed the Raffarin administration for ignoring warnings from health and emergency professionals and trying to minimize the crisis. Mattei lost his ministerial post in a cabinet reshuffle on 31 March 2004.
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