Shortly after school began this week at a primary school in the village of Hesdin-la-Forêt in northern France, a teacher fainted from the heat. When emergency responders arrived, they found a second teacher also needed treatment for heat-related illness.The children, aged between three- and seven-years-old, were evacuated to a shady part of the playground where they waited for their parents to come to take them home. In response, the town mayor shut all nurseries and primary schools for the rest of the week.The incident illustrated the shortcomings in national infrastructure revealed by an intense heatwave in France, which experienced its hottest day on record on Wednesday with peaks of 40.3 degrees in Paris and 43.8 degrees in the town of Pulluau in the west of the country.The night that followed broke records too: the lowest night-time temperature in Paris was 26.4 degrees.A “heat dome” over Europe has broken records in multiple countries, with Britain’s Met Office issuing a red alert warning of temperatures as high as 37 degrees, warnings of temperatures as high as 40 degrees in Germany, and peaks of 45 degrees forecast for Spain’s Andalucia.Train passengers use hand fans to cool off as they wait to board at Sants station in Barcelona, Spain, on Thursday. Photograph: Samuel Aranda/The New York Times