Postwoman Virginie Dessalles' job now includes sitting down and talking to elderly people who are lonely or isolated. During the conversation, Dessalles, who works in Bourgoin-Jallieu outside Lyon, checks that the person is able to cope with the high temperatures.
It enriches the job. The difficult thing is that we would like to give time to more people, but it doesn't always work during the working day, Virginie Dessalles told the television channel Franceinfo .
Some skeptical
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu ordered the operation at the end of June, which involves tens of thousands of postmen looking after vulnerable people a little extra during extreme heat waves. According to the AFP news agency, around 60,000 postal workers are affected.
A good idea, thinks an 80-year-old woman who calls herself Ann-Marie.
It's a presence and they can watch over people who aren't feeling so well, says Ann-Marie, who lives in Valbonne in southern France, to the TV channel.
Others are more skeptical.
"The postmen may have other things to do and not much time. It would be best if the government organized such initiatives in other ways," says an anonymous woman.
Temperatures are still very high in many parts of southern Europe. France is no exception, where a new heatwave was warned in the past few days. Most French departments are now under orange heat warnings, the second highest.
At the same time, there remains a high risk of forest fires in northwestern France and along the Mediterranean coast, according to the French weather service Meteofrance.
“Unparalleled”
The high temperatures combined with the lack of rain are also hitting agriculture hard. French Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard expressed her support for the country's farmers on Thursday.
"What they are experiencing is not just another drought, but an unprecedented event with very serious consequences," Genevard told RTL radio .
According to Genevard, the government expects that French farmers will need several hundred million euros in state emergency aid.
Facts: Summer forest fires
Over 550,000 hectares of forest have burned in the EU as of August 12 this year, of which just over 93,000 hectares are in France. This is according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).
In France, this year's forest fires are so far significantly more extensive than last year, when just over 66,000 hectares burned in the country.
Across the EU, forest fires so far this year are less extensive than in 2025, when over one million hectares of forest burned. However, this year's figure is significantly higher than the average for the period 2006 - 2025.
Source: EU climate service Copernicus
