About 40 people have died as a result of high temperatures during a heatwave in France over the last two weeks, a French public health body said on Tuesday.
The number of deaths directly attributable to the heatwave is "about 40", said the head of the National Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS), Gilles Brucker.
The last update from InVS, a government body responsible for monitoring public health issues in France, had put the number of deaths at about 30.
The latest heatwave, which has seen temperatures approach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas, has revived memories of a devastating bout of baking temperatures in 2003 that killed about 15,000 people in the country.
