As one of his worst weeks at the head of the French government drew to a close, Raffarin lashed back at those who accused him and his cabinet of being unprepared for the heatwave in which up to 3,000 mostly elderly people died.

"Obviously, I own up to my share of responsibility in this tragedy, but I reject any notion that the public authorities did not work properly," he said in an interview given from his holiday residence in the Alps and due to appear in Sunday's Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

"Those who are playing this little game are frivolous and irresponsible," he added. "Yes, some of us were away on holiday -- including those who would teach us lessons today -- but we were all within reach through the telephone, fax and computer."

The prime minister's aides have held a meeting every day since early August, as have officials in the departments of health and the elderly, he said, adding: "we were all ready to act."

Earlier, Raffarin had sounded more apologetic, acknowledging that he had "alas, learned a lot in this crisis."

Visiting a home for the elderly to emphasise his point, Raffarin blamed the crisis on the general neglect of senior citizens in France.

Noting that half of those who succumbed to the intense heat died at home rather than in hospitals, Raffarin said the "loneliness of old people is a deep fault in French society."

It was a problem that could only get worse, he said, with the number of people above the age of 85 likely to double in the next 10 years.

Raffarin called for "national solidarity" with the elderly and appealed to families and neighbors not to be indifferent to "the loneliness and sometimes the abandoning" of old people behind "closed shutters."

The government has been trying to ward off criticism that it neglected the crisis until it was too late, as hundreds of heat-prostrated people poured into overworked and under-staffed hospital emergency departments.

Authorities have opened an emergency morgue with enough room for 2,000 corpses in a disused hall at the city's food warehouses, but with a sudden drop in temperature, the death rate has fallen back to normal levels for the time of the year, according to a spokesman for Pompes Funebres Generales, one of the country's largest undertaking firms.

During the heatwave, the death rate increased by 49 percent in the Paris region and and by 37 percent in the rest of France, the spokesman said.

Temperatures dropped in Paris to a maximum of about 28 degrees Celsiusdegrees Fahrenheit), down from 42 degrees earlier in the week. The meteorological service predicted a slight rise in temperatures over the next few days, but no return to the stifling heat of last week.

The president of the association of emergency room doctors, Patrick Pelloux, who first raised the alert about the sharply increased death rate, said the emergency mobilization of hospital staff meant that the situation was back to normal on Saturday with no delays in admitting patients or problems in finding hospital beds.

The heatwave struck when many hospital workers were on vacation along with much of the rest of the population and the entire political establishment.

Earlier, the government's spokesman, Jean-Francois Cope, said that legislation introducing a 35-hour work week passed by the previous Socialist government had caused "insurmountable difficulties" in the hospitals.

But Pelloux said this remark was "shameful" in view of the fact that staff returned from their vacations to help out in the crisis.

He also rejected calls for the resignation of the health minister, Jean-Francois Mattei, saying, "you don't ask for the resignation of a minister in the middle of catastrophe. Mr. Mattei reacted on the basis of the information that was given to him."

Nevertheless, by allowing it to allege that the government didn't care for elderly, the crisis presented the opposition Socialist party with an opportunity to attack the government and rebuild its support following a series of election defeats.

Followed by a gaggle of officials and journalists, Raffarin told the 62 bemused inhabitants at a home for the elderly in Fleurey sur Ouche in central France that it was "time for solidarity not polemics."

Meanwhile, Industry Minister Nicole Fontaine said the drop in temperatures meant that no electricity cuts were envisaged next week. But there was no let-up for the 15th straight day Saturday in record ozone levels and pollution in southern France, mainly because of heavy traffic.

TERRA.WIRE