Carpentras: Two Children Found Dead in Hot Car During France's Record Heatwave

On 22 June 2026, two siblings aged two and four were discovered lifeless inside their family car parked in a residential courtyard in Carpentras, Vaucluse, southeastern France. Emergency services were alerted at 13:10, and firefighters arrived a few minutes later to find the children in cardiac arrest; resuscitation attempts failed.

The prosecutor of Carpentras, Hélène Mourges, opened an involuntary homicide inquiry and indicated that the extreme heatwave is the primary line of investigation. Temperatures that day reached up to 39 °C in Carpentras and as high as 43 °C in parts of the country, prompting a red‑alert heat warning across 49 French departments.

The mother, 33, was taken into care by emergency crews and has not yet been questioned. The tragedy is one of at least 18 heat‑related deaths reported in France that week, which also includes elderly fatalities and drownings linked to people seeking relief in rivers and lakes. Schools were closed or had altered timetables, and transport services were disrupted as authorities urged the public to protect vulnerable individuals from the extreme temperatures.