As Europe bakes in early heatwave, fan and air-con sales skyrocket

Europe braced for more of an unprecedented heatwave that has smashed records in many countries and sent air-conditioner sales zooming in a continent unused and ill-equipped to handle searing heat.
The extreme weather was being driven by atmospheric and circulation patterns that keep hot air trapped in place for days, causing the mercury to slowly rise, with these factors exacerbated by global warming, experts say.
France’s national temperature indicator – an average of daytime and nighttime temperatures across 30 stations – reached 29.8 degrees on Tuesday, the hottest since measurements began in 1947.
Sales of fans and air conditioners meanwhile skyrocketed in a country where most buildings are not designed to deal with extreme heat.
On Monday, hypermarket operator Carrefour had sold 30,000 units by 6.30pm – “a thousand times more than on a normal day”, CEO Alexandre Bompard said.
Sales on Amazon nearly doubled last week compared with the same period in 2025, while electronics outlet Fnac Darty reported double-digit growth.

Thierry, an electrician in southwest France, said he was overwhelmed by requests for “emergency” air-conditioning installations.
“In theory, you have to submit a request to the owners’ association general meeting” in residential complexes “but people don’t want to wait”.
“It’s difficult to live” alone and without air conditioning, said Martine Belloc, a 62-year-old retiree in Bordeaux, who on Tuesday went to La ManuCo, a co-working site that mobilised to welcome elderly people.
With four more French departments being put under the highest heat alert category Wednesday, some 44 million people are affected.
Added to the 31 departments currently on orange alert, more than 90 per cent of the French population was exposed to extreme heat, with temperatures of 39 degrees to 41 degrees expected on Wednesday from Brittany to the Paris region, and in much of the southwest.
France has recorded 40 fatalities from drowning in the past week as people seek relief in rivers and other bodies of water, despite authorities’ warnings about unsupervised swimming. .

This heatwave, coming early in the summer, has already been compared to the August 2003 heatwave that roasted France with the highest temperatures in over half a century. It caused an estimated 15,000 deaths, many of them among older people in flats and retirement homes without air conditioning.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Italy’s health ministry declared a red heatwave alert in 16 cities on Wednesday, including Milan and Rome.
In the coming days, the heatwave was expected to extend into eastern Europe.
Poland’s weather service issued high-level heat warnings for the western part of the country from Thursday to Saturday, forecasting temperatures could break the record of 40.2 degrees set in 1921.
Croatia’s popular Adriatic coast was also put under red alert for Friday and Saturday.
Hungary, already under a second-level heat alert, said it was raising that to the maximum level from Saturday to Tuesday as temperatures continued to rise.

The current heatwave was “significantly exacerbated by human-induced climate change”, without which the current temperatures would have been 2 to 4 degrees cooler, according to a scientific study published this week.
But some relief could start to come from the west on Wednesday, when Spain’s national weather service said temperatures would drop in most of the country.
By Wednesday afternoon, only parts of the Basque country in the north will still be marked red, and on Thursday no part of Spain will be rated either red or orange.
But no quick relief is in sight across the rest of western Europe.
From Wednesday until at least Friday, central and southern Netherlands would be under a code orange for extreme heat.
Anyone living in Amsterdam with a city pass may swim for free in six city outdoor pools, while national rail company NS will run fewer trains on a number of routes starting Wednesday due to the expected heat.

Hundreds of British schools planned to close or close early this week because of the heat, while many train services were reduced to avoid heat-related problems on the rail lines.
The Met Office, the UK weather agency, issued a heat warning for Wednesday and Thursday, with forecasts suggesting June’s all-time daily temperature record could be broken.
Temperatures of around 37 degrees are expected in southern England, with up to 35 degrees in southeast Wales. The peak of the heatwave is now forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, when highs could reach 39 degrees in London or southern England.
Conditions were expected to ease by Friday, the Met Office said.
Additional reporting by Associated Press