France’s education minister says exams should be held at cooler times of day as extreme heat hits
Students in France are sitting their Baccalaureate exams today – but no amount of revision can prepare them for the potential challenges of the week ahead. The country is bracing for what could be another...
Students in France are sitting their Baccalaureate exams today – but no amount of revision can prepare them for the potential challenges of the week ahead.
The country is bracing for what could be another intense and widespread heatwave, with temperatures potentially soaring to 40°C in some places.
It’s set to push schools, many of which are poorly prepared for extreme heat, further into crisis.
At the end of May, an unprecedented heatwave left students sweltering through their high school exams, many with inadequate shade, ventilation and drinking water. resources.
The ordeal has prompted French Minister of National Education Édouard Geffray to propose shifting exam times so they don’t take place at the hottest times of day, given the increasingly extreme and early onset of heatwaves in the country.
Speaking on France Inter radio on 14 June, he said exams should be held in the morning in future and rooms should be ventilated before students arrive.
“We can no longer afford to have exams today in May or June… that take place between 2pm and 6pm, it’s not possible,” he said, suggesting that tests should instead take place between 8am and midday.
While the recent May heatwave did not prompt mass school closures in France, nearly 1,900 schools were shut last July when temperatures exceeded 40°C in some areas.
UK schools warned of 40°C highs and rise in ‘tropical nights’
France isn’t the first country to propose such adaptations to worsening spring heat. Last summer, the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) proposed moving GCSE and A Level exams, which currently take place between May and June, to cooler months. It warned that sitting exams during extreme heat could hinder students’ performance.
In CCC’s latest report released in May, it said the UK is “built for a climate that no longer exists”. With temperatures projected to exceed 40°C across the country by 2050, it called for air conditioning to be installed in all care homes and hospitals within the next 10 years, and in all schools within 25 years.
The report doubled down on its call for schools to consider the impact of heat on pupils taking exams – not only in relation to temperatures in the classroom but also at night, as the increasing prevalence of ‘tropical nights’ – those over 20°C – could impact students’ ability to sleep.
A major 2018 study by researchers at Harvard found a “significant” link between higher temperatures and lower school achievement in US schools. These findings also bore out in a 2025 study on the impact of heat on learning in Spanish autonomous regions: temperatures above 26.7°C were found to negatively impact maths and science scores.
How hot will France get this week?
Parts of southern France already began sweltering on Saturday with temperatures reaching highs of 37°C in Narbonne, Occitania, and 35.2°C in Montpellier.
On Tuesday (16 June), this is expected to spread to the northeast, with temperatures exceeding 30°C even in the Grand Est region, according to Météo-France. Temperatures will also rise in the central regions and in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
On Wednesday (17 June) the heat is expected to intensify, spreading across all regions, with most experiencing temperatures between 32 and 36°C. Only Brittany and the coastal areas of the English Channel will be spared, with relatively cooler temperatures, below 30°C, or even around 25°C near the coast, forecasts Météo-France.
This is driven partly by the arrival of a mass of hot air from North Africa, passing over Spain – where temperatures last Friday reached levels more typical of July.
After Europe experienced one of its hottest Mays on record last month, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service warned that climate extremes are becoming the “new normal”.
Simon Stiell, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), described the unprecedented heatwave as a “brutal reminder of the spiralling impacts of the climate crisis”, fuelled by the world’s addiction to burning coal, oil and gas, as well as destroying vital carbon sinks like forests.
