Méteo France issued a weather alert on Friday for five departments in the south-east of the country that are still under orange heatwave and thunderstorm alert until 10am this Saturday.
Maximum temperatures are set to rise to between 36°C and 39°C in Ardèche, Drôme, Alpes-Maritimes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Var.
Forecasters say the mercury could hit 40°C in Provence.
According to the Meteo-France weather agency, the temperatures should start to drop a little by Sunday afternoon.
However, in a press briefing Frederic Nathan of Meteo-France, underlined that this heat wave is not as exceptional as the one experienced in 2019, when temperatures rose above 45°C across the country.
Meanwhile, thunderstorms accompanied by strong winds battered the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region on Thursday causing widespread damage and power cuts without, however, any loss of life.
🔶 5 dpts en #vigilanceOrange
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Thunderstorms cause blackouts
Electricity network Enedis reported: "The departments of Loire, Rhône and Ain were hit in the early afternoon and evening by thunderstorms accompanied by strong winds, causing damage to the electricity distribution network."
By 8pm, 50,000 customers - 20,000 of them in the Rhône were still without power.
In these same departments as well as in Saône-et-Loire, the storms and high wind caused trees to fall, which also disrupted train traffic.
By late evening, the SNCF said that train traffic would be returning to normal by this Friday.
