With the Socialist and Green opposition parties baying for blood over the government's tardy reaction to the crisis, a deputy for the ruling UMP party in southeast France, Christian Estrosi, accused families of "failing in their duties".

"It's not the government's fault that every person in their 80s or 90s doesn't have a relative or a friend behind them to take elementary precautions," he said in an interview with the daily Le Parisien newspaper.

Government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said meanwhile that a law on reduced working hours introduced by the last Socialist government had caused "insurmountable difficulties" in hospitals.

More than 3,000 mainly elderly people are thought to have died as a result of the torrid heat of the past two weeks, sparking a health crisis as hospitals, doctors' surgeries and mortuaries overflowed.

The problems have been compounded by low staffing levels during the country's peak holiday period, when many businesses close and public services grind to a near-halt.

Cope backed off from suggesting that the law which introduced the 35-hour working week should be changed -- which would have infuriated the country's already restive trade unions.

He also strenuously denied accusations that the government had failed to see the crisis coming.

However the Socialists, for whom the issue has provided a welcome opportunity to rebuild support following a series of crushing election defeats, continued to accuse ministers of neglecting the elderly.

The head of the party's parliamentary group, Jean-Marc Ayrault, quoted in Le Parisien, said he had the impression that the government "was not really in control."

Although the record-breaking heat began in early August, it was only last weekend that the reports of increased deaths began to circulate.

Even then the first reports, from the head of the country's emergency ward doctors' association, were downplayed by some health officials, and brought little reaction from ministers for several days.

It was only on Thursday, with the heat already abating in several regions, that the health ministry acknowledged that around 3,000 people could have died as a result of the heat, and launched an emergency plan.

Attention has focused particularly on elderly people, often living alone, who in many cases fail to realise that they are becoming dehydrated.

Patrick Pelloux, the emergency ward doctor who first raised the alarm, said the health authorities "did not wake up quickly enough to the seriousness of the situation", in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper.

"A lot of lives could have been saved," he said, adding that all the extra hospital beds made available under the government's emergency plan -- including some in military hospitals -- were now occupied.

The Red Cross has mobilised 750 volunteers to help overworked staff in around 50 hospitals and 66 care homes around the country.

The impression of a government asleep at the wheel has been strengthened by the fact that many ministers have been on holiday.

The crisis prompted Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to rush back to Paris on Thursday, cutting short his break in the French Alps -- where temperatures have been considerably cooler than elsewhere.

Two leading politicians, Yves Contassot of the Green Party, and Arnaud Montebourg, a left-wing Socialist, have called on Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei to resign.

On Friday, with temperatures finally falling to more seasonable levels, a top medical official said the health situation remained "worrying" although the emergency plan introduced by the government had eased the situation.

While hospital admissions were finally beginning to drop, however, funeral services were still feeling stretched.

In an unprecedented move, burials were authorised on Friday despite a public holiday.

Health official Francois Aubart said however that the long weekend could bring more deaths, and there were fears that a new heatwave could begin next week.

Prompted by such concerns, hundreds of Christians prayed for rain on Friday at an annual religious procession in the southern city of Marseille.

jch-burs/lmf/gk

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