"There was neither a true alert in the sense of an alarm being given nor was there any advance preparation," Mattei told a parliamentary committee looking into what happened during the heat wave, which killed more than 11,000 people.

Referring to recommendations made by the office of surgeon general Lucien Abenhaim -- who has since resigned -- on how to beat the heat, Mattei said they "hardly attracted any attention", conceding they were "quite far from the idea we have of a health alert."

"The heat wave caught out our monitoring system, right at the time when we were assessing the situation," he said.

The minister also told parliamentary deputies that the death toll for the first two weeks of August -- when temperatures across France soared repeatedly to an unusual 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) -- could be slightly higher.

Mattei said about 12,000 more deaths than normal had been recorded from August 1 to 15 -- more than the 11,435 deaths reported by the government late last month.

But the minister insisted that the new figure was "global" and not limited to heat-related deaths, as was the tally of 11,435 given by the ministry's health monitoring institute.

On Wednesday, the country's largest chain of undertakers, the Pompes Funebres Generales, put the number of deaths above normal during the month of August at 15,000. Final government figures are due later this month.

Mattei told the parliamentary panel that experts on heat-related crises based at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta had deemed the summer heat wave a "natural disaster".

"They told me that a heat wave such as the one France experienced from August 2 to 4 has not been seen in the northern hemisphere for a century," the minister said of his meeting with the US experts last month.

France's center-right government, especially Mattei, has come under intense criticism for its handling of the health emergency, with the left-wing opposition repeatedly calling for the minister to step down.

But he told parliament that he "never thought of resigning", adding that as a result of the health emergency, he would "know how to make sure that this never happens again."

Earlier this week, 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.

A team of medical 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 emergency.

"An error in anticipation, organization and coordination -- the response was not suited" to the situation, they noted.

A full parliamentary commission of inquiry into the crisis sparked by the heat wave is expected to be created next month.

TERRA.WIRE