Tourists bemused as Louvre closes early due to heat

Tourists who visited Paris' Louvre museum said its early closure on Wednesday (June 24) and over the following days until the weekend would impact people's plans who had come to see the sights of the French capital, currently in the grip of a record-breaking heatwave.

The Louvre will close at 16:00 (1400GMT) every day from Wednesday until Saturday (June 27) due to the heat and last entry will be at 14:00, the museum said on its website. It said pre-purposed tickets for later time slots would be automatically refunded.

"You cannot really enjoy it as you would enjoy it on any other day", said student Yuliia Konotopova, originally from Ukraine. She thought it would have been better to keep the museum open in the mornings and evenings and closed during the hottest parts of the day.

American tourists Adrienne Mette and Tanya Thompson said they were lucky to have reserved tickets before noon, but that other tourist attractions were also shutting due to the weather. "It's dangerously hot", Thompson said.

The Louvre said in a press release the adjustment to its opening hours was done to keep visitors and staff safe and comfortable as parts of the building are vulnerable to heat accumulating inside, particularly at the end of the day with high volumes of visitors.

Weather agency Meteo-France has said the conditions are comparable to a heatwave in August 2003 that lasted 16 days and caused an estimated 80,000 excess deaths across Europe.

Lawmakers in France's parliament lined up to ask questions of government ministers about the response to the conditions.

"It will be necessary to shift to a massive-scale plan, because what we are experiencing today, we know that by 2050, the frequency of these heatwaves could be five times higher than it is today", environment minister Monique Barbut told lawmakers.

Camera: Nicolas Coupe, Elissa Darwish Production: Elissa Darwish Editing & Writing: Lewis Macdonald/Reuters