The numbers are dizzying. Since June 19, more than 90 deaths by drowning have been recorded, the Minister of Sports and Youth announced on RMC on Thursday July 2. It is impossible not to establish a link between this tragic toll and the extraordinary heatwave which hit France at the end of last month “There, we have seen a drop in recent days, so we can clearly see that it is correlated with a peak of heat where people are going to seek coolness”, detailed Marina Ferrari.
This phenomenon is unfortunately not new. Year after year, Public Health France reports point out the links between extreme heat and an increase in the number of drownings. In 2024, between July 16 and August 15, 576 people had drowned in the country. A figure up 41% compared to the previous year, “probably linked to the successive periods of extreme heat”, noted the health agency.
409 fatal drownings in 2025
Last year, 1,418 drownings were recorded between the beginning of June and the end of September, of which 409 were followed by deaths, respectively 14% and 16% more than in 2024. However, according to Météo France, the summer of 2025 was the third hottest since 1900, behind those of 2003 and 2023. Temperatures had exceeded 35 degrees over a large part of France between June 19 and July 8, then from August 7.
Four regions accounted for almost half (46%) of drowning deaths that year: Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Occitanie and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. What do they have in common? These are tourist areas, having a seafront for three of them and concentrating “the majority of French family swimming pools” and numerous rivers and bodies of water, recalled Public Health France in its annual report.
The health agency also warned of the changing profile of victims. In 2025, the increase in fatal drownings “mainly” affected adolescents. Thus, 21 young people aged 13 to 17 lost their lives last summer, compared to 10 in 2024. Nearly six out of ten minors who drowned died in a natural swimming site (river or pond, in particular), two out of ten in a private family swimming pool.
This year, while summer is just beginning, 57 children and adolescents have already died by drowning. “There is a fragility in very young children, who must not be left unsupervised, then there are young people with behaviors that are dangerous, “I jump from a bridge”, “I go into a canal which is not supervised””, specified Minister Marina Ferrari on RMC.
Compulsory swimming lessons?
If nothing is done, the increase in the number of drownings is expected to increase with climate change, which makes heatwaves earlier, more frequent, intense and pushes an increasing number of people to go and cool off in the water. For several decades, the fight against drowning has mainly involved policies promoting learning to swim at school. A 2011 circular provides that all students must know how to swim safely in a swimming pool or supervised area by the end of middle school at the latest.
But, faced with the increase in drownings, some want to go further. Several legislative proposals have been tabled in Parliament in recent years. LFI deputies returned to the charge at the end of June with a text which intends to “make effective equal access for all to learning autonomy in water and swimming”. It plans to introduce into the education code “the obligation to teach autonomy in water and learn to swim at each level of education” and to create a national fund for free access to discovery and education courses in swimming in a natural environment.
