Paris bans drinking alcohol in public as hospitals hit heatwave breaking point

Original article by Angelique Chrisafis in Paris

Drinking takeaway alcohol in the street has been banned in Paris this weekend and the city’s pride march has been cancelled to spare overwhelmed ambulance services and overcrowded hospitals in the deadly heatwave.

“As you know, drinking alcohol with the sun beating down can have a devastating effect,” the ⁠Paris police chief, Patrice Faure, ​told ​BFM TV.

Emergency services had reached full capacity as the number of serious heat-related illnesses rose, he said. “We are reaching a saturation point in hospital facilities.”

Paris Pride, which draws hundreds of thousands of people on to streets throughout the city, was seen by police as a major health risk in the extreme temperatures. It will be held in September instead, organisers have said. The Solidays music festival will also be cancelled.

The street-drinking ban comes into force on Friday afternoon before France play Norway in the World Cup.

Dehydration, cardiac arrests and heat-induced illnesses have become a major problem in Paris this week as temperatures break records day and night.

The alcohol ban is intended to stop people buying beer, wine and spirits from shops and drinking them in the street and beside the city’s canals and the Seine.

It began at noon on Friday and will run until 7am on Saturday morning. It will then come into force again at noon on Saturday and run until 7am on Sunday. All sales of takeaway alcohol from shops and supermarkets will be banned from 6pm on Friday through to Saturday morning, and again on Saturday at the same time.

Restaurants, bars and cafes with public seating areas are not included in the ban and their customers can still drink alcohol.

“I must ensure that the pressure decreases,” Faure said of hospital services.

Full statistics on deaths related to the heatwave are not yet available, but the Paris mayor, Emmanuel Grégoire, said this week that deaths in the city will have certainly risen.

Paris hospitals, like many across France, are full, authorities said, with some patients being treated in corridors. The city’s ambulance services are responding to 2,500 callouts a day, double the usual figure, and many are related to dehydration and heat-related health crises.

It is not certain how far the alcohol ban will be respected. There was a ban on drinking takeaway alcohol in the street last weekend during the Fête de la Musique in Paris and several other towns, but the cleanup operation in Paris after the festival collected piles of beer cans and wine bottles.

The French health minister, Stéphanie Rist, said the ambulance service in Paris had reported four times more cardiac arrests than normal over a 24-hour period. Young people were also suffering them, she said.

Temperatures in Paris hit a June record ⁠of 40.9C (105.6F) on Wednesday and pushed close to 40C on Thursday. Higher temperatures are predicted in some areas on Friday. At least 55 people have drowned in France since the start of the heatwave, and three young children have been found dead in hot cars.

More than 44 million people in France, out of a total population of 67 million, have been under the highest red alert for heat this week, and at least several more days of stifling heat are forecast.