FRANCE: The French government is responding to the heat wave by breaking its own rules for nuclear and conventional electrical power production, writes Lara Marlowe.
The Prime Minister, Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin, is expected to grant exceptions to 10 electricity generating plants, of which six are powered by nuclear reactors, to dump hot water back into the rivers.
The water is taken from rivers for use as a coolant, but the law prohibits it being dumped back if it exceeds a maximum temperature that varies from 24 to 27 degrees. Fish are threatened at 28 degrees.
Water cycled through six nuclear power plants, at Bugey, Golfech, Tricastin, St Alban, Cruas and Nogent, has reached the maximum temperature. By law the plants should be shut down. But following a meeting of experts on energy in the Prime Minister's office yesterday, Mr Raffarin has been asked to extend the maximum temperature by one degree until the end of September for the six nuclear plants and four conventional fuel-fired plants.
Three of the nuclear plants - Bugey and Tricastin in the Rhône-Alpes region and Golfech in the southwest - were already granted one degree extensions earlier this summer, which means they will now be pouring water at least two degrees over the legal limit into rivers, with untold damage to fish and plant life.
The rule-bending came to light when journalists aggressively questioned the Environment Minister, Ms Roselyne Bachelot, at a press conference. If the exceptions are not granted and the heat wave continues, she said, France could be forced to start power cuts next week.
The temperature of the Seine and Garonne Rivers have exceeded their historical records by one degree, Ms Bachelot said.
Any exceptions granted by the Prime Minister would be followed by close monitoring of their ecological effects, she promised.
And the electricity company EDF would be required to restore rivers to their former condition.
Mr Alain Schmitt, the deputy director of the Directorate for Nuclear Safety, stressed that overheated waste water is an environmental - not a safety - issue.
The EDF earlier experimented with water sprinklers to cool the outer walls of a nuclear reactor at Fessenheim but stopped the measure after it was ridiculed.
Mr Schmitt said none of the containment enclosures of French nuclear reactors have reached the legal maximum of 50 degrees. He and Ms Bachelot insisted they will be shut down if this occurs.
French electricity consumption has risen 10 per cent this month, because of wider use of air-conditioning, refrigerators and freezers.
Ms Bachelot issued "a solemn appeal to the civic sense of our citizens" to turn off air-conditioners and lights, use less hot water and avoid using their cars.
"The EDF is exploiting the margins to the limit," she said. "They are using all seaside facilities to the maximum. Wherever legally possible, contracts [to sell electricity] abroad are not being honoured, and the EDF is buying power on international markets at high prices."
Referring to global warming, Ms Bachelot said France's hottest summer in more than half a century "prefigures what may well happen in future years, for which we must prepare ourselves".
Mr Frédéric Marillier, who heads Greenpeace's anti-nuclear campaign, said that if the government cared about the environment, it would lower - not raise - the maximum temperature of water dumped by power plants back into French rivers.
"They're running away from the problem," he added. "There is no long-term reflection."
Present daytime temperatures of close to 40 degrees are expected to continue at least until Thursday, said Mr Nicolas Beriot, the deputy director of Météo France.
"We expect the north to cool down slightly next weekend, but it will not be the end of the heat wave," he said.
"I have no good news to tell you. Beyond a week, we can make no predictions."
The Association of Hospital Emergency Room Doctors have called the heat wave "a veritable health catastrophe". More than 50 old people were reported to have died over the weekend from heat-related causes.
The main hospital in Bordeaux announced yesterday that 20 people died there. Undertakers in Orléans can no longer cope with the bodies they are receiving, and have begun storing them in hospital refrigerators.
Cemeteries and crematoriums are also overwhelmed by the sudden rise in mortality, and there is a six-day waiting list for burials.