"Taking into account the definitive increases recorded by our 976 sales points, we now put at 15,000 the number of extra dead in the month of August," said Isabelle Dubois-Costes of the Pompes Funebres Generales (General Funerals), which controls a quarter of the French market.

At the end of August, the company put the figure at 13,000 extra deaths.

The government's provisional estimate for the first half of August -- the height of the heat wave -- is 11,435, with elderly people the primary victims. A definitive figure is due to be released later this month.

On Monday, an official report blamed administrative confusion and the large numbers of doctors away on leave for the heavy death toll during what meteorologists say was France's hottest summer in 50 years.

"An error in anticipation, organization and coordination -- the response was not suited" to the situation, said a team of experts commissioned by the health ministry to draft the report, the first official probe into the crisis.

The experts said the "compartmentalization of services between the (health) ministry, other ministries and workers on the ground prevented a pooling of available information" about the scope of the health emergency.

The report also criticized the lack of available doctors and hospital beds during the heat wave, noting the "departure en masse by general practitioners taking holiday" had had a "serious effect on the functioning of emergency services".

France's center-right government, especially Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei, has come under intense criticism in the past month for failing to anticipate the crisis, but Mattei has refused to step down.

"After the reports, there will be political decisions to take," said Patrick Pelloux, president of France's association of hospital emergency doctors, who was one of the first to warn of the mounting death toll, especially in Paris.

TERRA.WIRE