New Delhi, June 26 -- MADRID - When the Paris police prefect took the podium on Wednesday, he did not lead with temperatures. He led with hospitals. Patrice Faure told reporters the city was "reaching a saturation point in hospital facilities," that in 24 hours, Paris emergency services had responded to 25 cardiac arrests, compared to fewer than 10 on a normal day. He announced a ban on public alcohol. He asked Parisians to check on their elderly neighbours.

The words were calibrated and bureaucratic. They also carried the echo of a failure Europe thought it had fixed.

In the summer of 2003, inadequate early-warning systems and overwhelmed hospitals contributed to more than 70,000 deaths across the continent over six weeks. Governments ...