The Eiffel Tower in Paris announced on its official website on Saturday that it will close at 16:00 on Saturday and Sunday due to soaring temperatures, instead of its regular closing time of 00:45 the following day.
The Louvre Museum and the Orsay Museum in Paris have also shortened their opening hours. The Louvre will close at 16:00 through July 13, while the Orsay Museum will close at 17:00 through July 15.
According to French media reports, around one-quarter of France is under a red alert for extreme heat. Meteo-France forecast a high of 36 degrees Celsius in Paris on Saturday, with temperatures in some other parts of the country expected to reach 39 to 40 degrees Celsius. The current heatwave is expected to persist until the middle of next week.
Heatwave prompts Eiffel Tower, Paris museums to close early
China's foreign trade showed upward momentum in the first half of 2026, with higher port throughput and growth in both imports and exports, according to official data.
According to the country's State Information Center, during the first six months of this year, China's average daily container throughput at ports nationwide increased by 6.7 percent year on year, and the average daily cargo throughput grew by 1.3 percent.
Meanwhile, the country's foreign trade structure has also been optimized, transforming high added-value products into the driving force for export growth.
Latest statistics showed that in the January-to-June period, the average daily number of international cargo flights increased by 4.6 percent year on year, with strong and sustained demand for high-value-added products, such as electronics.
"Facing the complex and ever-changing external economic and trade environment in the first half of the year, the resilience and competitiveness of China's industrial and supply chains have become increasingly evident. Foreign trade has not only achieved steady growth in scale but has also demonstrated a positive trend of 'quality imports and exports.' Looking ahead to the second half of 2026, as the benefits of institutional opening up continue to unfold, new momentum for the high-quality development of China's foreign trade will keep building up, likely providing further certainty and vitality to the global economy," said Wang Bingjie, assistant researcher with the National Development and Reform Commission's Institute of Foreign Economic.
China’s foreign trade shows great momentum in H1
