FRANCE has recorded its hottest day ever as an early summer heatwave grips Europe.

Tuesday’s record of 29.8°C (85.6°F) for France’s national thermal indicator — an average of temperatures measured at 30 weather stations — was only the latest in a series of never-before-registered highs heaped on Europe’s largest country. 

The conditions are likely to persist at least until the weekend.

“Further record-breaking temperatures are expected, including some that could surpass all previous records, regardless of the time of year,” the Meteo France weather service said.

France’s previous hottest days were recorded during heatwaves in August 2003 and July 2019, with an average temperature of 29.4°C (84.9°F).

France has recorded 40 deaths from drowning in the past week as people seek relief in rivers and other bodies of water, despite authorities’ warnings about unsupervised swimming. 

Most of the drownings involved young people, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said.

Meteo France said the heatwave had reached what it described as a “plateau of severity,” with unrelenting high temperatures day and night. 

A growing number of regions were set to tip into the red again today as the heat spread across more than half of the country, including the northernmost tip of France, the weather service said.