Deaths surged 29% in France during week of record heat, health agency says

PARIS (AP) — Deaths surged by nearly a third in France during the hottest week of a record heat wave last month, the country’s public health authority said Friday, reporting at least 2,000 more deaths than in the previous week when temperatures were already climbing and filling emergency wards with heat victims.

The new and still incomplete figures from Public Health France doubled its first preliminary estimate of at least 1,000 additional deaths that it gave last Sunday. That earlier estimate covered just three of the hottest days of extreme, deadly heat.

In Paris, funeral service directors have said they’ve struggled to find places to store bodies before burial or cremation, with some mortuaries saying they were full and having to turn bodies away.

The updated tally of deaths from Public Health France spans the week of June 22 to June 28, during which France saw its hottest-ever days and records shattered for peak daytime and nighttime temperatures in many cities and towns across the country. The heat also broke temperature records in many other parts of Europe.

Public Health France said it has counted 8,973 deaths so far for that week, cautioning that the number is still only partial. It said the preliminary total was 29% more than the 6,948 deaths registered for the previous week of June 15 to June 21, when the heat wave started.

The difference between the two sets of figures — a total so far of 2,025 — is therefore considered to be additional deaths from one week to the next, from all causes and covering all age groups, it said.

At the Paris-Saclay Hospital, patients suffering from heat exposure started arriving in a surge on June 20, Dr. Nicolas Gonzales, head of the emergency department, told The Associated Press.

He said they treated heat victims for heart attacks, dehydration, kidney malfunctions and other heat-related problems, from children to older people living alone.

Public Health France said there was a particularly sharp increase week-on-week in the number of deaths in private homes, with those figures up 91%. Deaths in care homes for older people increased by 37% and in hospitals by nearly 20%.

The Paris region appears to have been hit hardest, with a nearly 63% increase in deaths from one week to the next, it said.

The health agency cautioned that its tallies underestimate the true death toll, because they’re based on incomplete data.

“The mortality will as a consequence be higher than these first figures,” it said.

A woman holds a fan as the roofs of Paris are seen background, Tuesday, June 23, 2026. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

Tourists enjoy cooling off at a public water fountain In Paris, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena )

FILE - A person cools off at Trocadero fountain near the Eiffel Tower during a heat wave in Paris, on June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

Zouhaeir Hertelli, a mortuary and funeral service director, walks out of his coffin storeroom near Paris’ Orly airport on Sunday, June 28, 2026. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

A nurse prepares a bed at the emergency department of the Paris-Saclay Hospital, outside Paris, Tuesday June 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena )

LONDON (AP) — Doubles players fear for their tennis future after being told by the ATP Tour that prize money and tournament sizes will decrease significantly starting in 2028.

A group of leading doubles players issued a statement Friday saying they are not “a carnival sideshow”, and that it will be impossible for anyone outside the top 30 in the ATP doubles rankings to make a living if the new proposals are adopted.

The statement comes after doubles players met with ATP officials at Wimbledon this week to discuss the future of a format that is struggling to draw an audience.

“The ATP is proposing to slash doubles draws, gut doubles prize money, and hand Challenger entry to singles players ahead of specialists who have built their careers in this discipline,” the players' statement said.

They said the proposal would give doubles players just 10 percent of the prize money at ATP tournaments — down from 20 percent — while halving the size of the doubles fields.

At the premier Masters tournaments, that would cut the doubles draw to 16 teams, while at the smaller ATP 500 and 250 events it would consist of just eight teams.

“Do the math on what that means for anyone outside the top 30: it will be impossible to make a living,” the statement added.

“This is not a minor adjustment. It is a plan to end doubles as a viable profession, dressed up as a cost-saving measure — and it is being pushed through with almost no transparency and almost no consultation with the players whose careers and livelihoods are on the line.”

Asked about the statement, the ATP Tour said it was “assessing the doubles product, draw sizes and player compensation distribution with the aim of creating a more sustainable long-term model while maintaining doubles’ important role on the Tour.”

It added that changing the doubles model could help increase early-round singles prize money, “helping more players at the highest level to better meet the costs of competing on Tour and build sustainable professional careers.”

The proposal does not affect Grand Slam tournaments. At this year's Wimbledon, there are 64 doubles teams in both the men's and women's draw and winning pairs split 760,000 pounds (about $1 million), compared to 3.6 million pounds ($4.8 million) for the singles champions.

Doubles has always taken a back seat to singles tournaments when it comes to popularity and TV audiences, and the format has already faced several changes in recent years. In 2023, Wimbledon joined the other Grand Slam tournaments in shortening matches from five to three sets.

The U.S. Open last year introduced a new mixed doubles format that was played before the singles tournament started, in order to draw top names like Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Iga Swiatek and Naomi Osaka. That was criticized by traditional doubles players, however, as it largely excluded them in favor of attracting more famous singles specialists.

The women's doubles at Wimbledon received a boost with Serena and Venus Williams accepting a wild-card entry. However, their participation was still in doubt after Serena tweaked her knee during her first-round singles match in her first appearance at the All England Club in four years.

The men's players said part of the problem in attracting an audience was due to the ATP Tour's “lackluster marketing of doubles, failure to exploit broadcast and other commercial partnerships, and poor event staging and promotion.”

“Doubles is not an afterthought we fell into,” the players' statement said. “It has always been part of this sport’s identity, not a discount version of it.”

AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz of Germany, top, face Roman Andres Burruchaga and Thiago Agustin Tirante of Argentina in their second round men's doubles match, at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Friday, July 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)