Today, Saturday, France, Spain, and other western European countries sweltered under a blistering heatwave that has sparked forest fires and fears that such early summer blasts of hot weather will now become the norm.

However, scientists had predicted such weather to be striking earlier in the year due to global warming.

Biarritz, a French southwestern town that has one of the country's most sought-after seaside resorts, saw its highest all-time temperature today, 41 degrees, according to state forecaster Meteo France.    

Hundreds of people and traffic jams formed queues outside aquatic leisure parks in the country, where people were seen taking refuge in water to escape the devastating heat.    

Some Parisians were seen resorting to the city's fountains, as temperatures reached as high as 42 degrees C in some areas, Meteo France said, adding that June records had already been beaten in 11 areas on Friday.

Matthieu Sorel, a climatologist, stated that it was "the earliest heatwave ever recorded in France" since 1947, adding that "many monthly or even all-time temperature records [are] likely to be beaten in several regions," and calling the weather a "marker of climate change".