'Unprecedented event with 1/1000 chance of happening' as record-breaking heatwave hits Europe
Jon Henley in Paris and Sam Jones in Madrid
More than 350 French towns have recorded their highest-ever temperatures for May as France and the UK set national heat records amid an extreme early-summer heat event that could see the mercury rise to 40C in parts of Spain by the end of the week.
The UK’s Met Office said the country’s all-time record for May was broken when a temperature of 34.8C was recorded at London’s Kew Gardens.
Météo France said late on Monday that new monthly highs for May had been recorded at 352 weather stations mainly in western France, with the highest – 37.1C – registered near Hossegor, in the south-western department of Landes.
“This is an unprecedented event with a one in 1,000 chance of happening at this time of year based on the climate from 1979 to 2025 and virtually impossible in the preindustrial era,” Christophe Cassou, a climate scientist, told Le Monde.
More new highs are likely to be set in France, Spain and the UK, forecasters said, with temperatures exceeding norms by 12C or 13C in what Météo France described as a “premature, remarkable and long” heat episode expected to last several more days.
Morning opening: This terrible war
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said that the war in Ukraine “needs to come to an end,” after his conversation with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
Responding to the strikes on Kyiv over the weekend and repeated warnings about more attacks planned in the coming days, Rubio said:
“Look, every time you see these big strikes from one side or the other, it’s a reminder of why this is a terrible war that’s now gone on longer than the second world war, and it needs to come to an end.”
Rubio said that Lavrov wanted to reiterate his warning to the US to pull its diplomats from the Ukrainian capital, but appeared to downplay it, saying:
“They sent a notice to all the embassies, and I think he was just calling me personally to tell me – they told all the embassies to – Kyiv’s going to be a very dangerous place – Kyiv’s been a very dangerous place now for a number of years.”
Despite the warning, several European diplomats insisted they would stay put in the capital, including the EU’s ambassador Katarina Mathernova.
But Rubio cautioned against the threat of further escalation:
“Look, the danger in all of these wars as they continue and then they go on is that they always have the threat of escalation, of spreading into something new.”
Curiously, Rubio said that Lavrov also wanted to “relay” a message from Russia’s Vladimir Putin to US president Donald Trump, without offering more details.
Elsewhere, I will look at the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to Lithuania as she wants to offer her solidarity with the region amid growing Russian threats, follow closely Hungary’s Péter Magyar as he delivers a speech on planned reforms in the Hungarian parliament, and bring you the latest on the record-heating heatwave across Europe.
It’s Tuesday, 26 May 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
