Europe's heat is Italy's mirror

The BBC and the Guardian reported this week that much of western Europe is under red heat alert, with France cancelling outdoor events and restricting alcohol sales, and children dying in cars as the heatwave intensifies. Italy's own temperatures are forecast to approach 40°C, with the centre-north particularly hard hit. These are not anomalies. They are the pattern the world's press now expects to report each June.

What strikes an observer from outside is not the heat itself—that is a fact of climate—but the question of preparation. France has moved quickly to restrict public gatherings and warn of danger. The European Union's new migration rules, which the UN rights chief troubled himself to critique this week, show that the bloc can coordinate swiftly when it perceives a threat. Yet heat, which kills reliably and predictably, seems to arrive each summer as a surprise. Italy, with its ageing population and its regions of profound inequality, is especially vulnerable to this kind of shock.

The international press frames these events as weather news, which they are. But they are also governance news. They ask whether a state can anticipate harm and act before crisis arrives. The heatwave will pass. But the question of whether Italy—and Europe—can move from reaction to readiness will return next June, and the June after that. The world is watching to see if we learn.