Marseille baby dies after being left in hot car as France records fourth child death in a week

France has managed, once again, to turn a summer heatwave into a lesson in preventable tragedy. In Marseille, an 18-month-old baby died after being found in a car that had overheated in the sun, bringing to four the number of child deaths in vehicles in France in just one week. The sequence is brutal in its simplicity: high temperatures, a closed car, and a few fatal minutes too many.

The child was discovered on Tuesday in the car park of the La Timone hospital campus, part of Aix-Marseille University, after suffering from hyperthermia. Civil protection services rushed the infant to the paediatrics department, then to the emergency unit in a life-threatening condition. The death was announced on Friday, and the exact time remains unclear.

Marseille was hardly a furnace by desert standards. Temperatures reached 33C on Tuesday, while the Bouches-du-Rhône département was under orange heatwave alert. That, apparently, was enough. According to media reports, the parent is believed to have forgotten the child in the car after going to work on the campus. The public prosecutor has opened an inquiry, handed to the territorial crime division, to establish the circumstances.

The university responded with the sort of statement institutions produce when words are all they have left. It is with deep sadness that we learnt of the tragic event that occurred on the Timone campus. We extend our sincerest condolences to the victim's family and loved ones. We also express our support for everyone who witnessed or has been affected by this tragic event, said Éric Berton, the university president, adding that a counselling and psychological support unit had been set up for staff and witnesses.

The Marseille death is only the latest in a grim run. On Thursday, prosecutors in Val-d'Oise announced the death of a three-year-old boy in Saint-Gratien, near Paris, after he became trapped in a family car in extreme heat. On Monday, two children aged two and four were found dead in a car in Carpentras, in the south of the country. In that case, the children are thought to have slipped out of their mother's sight, entered the vehicle and then been unable to get out.

Four dead children in one week is not a weather story, even if the weather is doing most of the work. It is a public-safety story, and a grim one. Heatwaves are not rare enough to excuse complacency, and cars remain mercilessly effective ovens once the doors are shut. France now has an inquiry in Marseille, three earlier cases to examine, and a question that is less meteorological than civilisational: how many warnings does a society need before it treats the obvious as urgent?

Written by Martina Kirchner martina.kirchner@alpineweekly.com