The demand, made on Chirac's return from a three-week vacation in Canada, came the main French undertakers' group announced there had been 10,400 more deaths than usual across the country so far this month.

Although the Pompes Funebres Generales (PFG) -- which handles 25 percent of France's funerals -- did not itself draw a link between the deaths and the heat wave, the government and doctors' groups have acknowledged that the final toll was likely to be in the thousands.

Patrick Pelloux, the head of an emergency room doctors' union who first raised the alarm over the number of dead, expressed shock at the new numbers.

"If the PFG's figures turn out to be right, this is a humanitarian catastrophe, a major crisis for our country," he said.

MG France, a family doctors' union, chimed in, saying the number "reflected an unprecedented health disaster for the country", evidence of an "inappropriate" system of health warnings.

But Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin put out a statement urging caution over the death toll, pointing out that an official count was under way.

"Out of respect for the French people personally affected by this tragic crisis, a scientific study which will establish reliable figures is necessary. Everybody kneeds to know the truth," he said.

French Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei said Monday that it was "plausible" that the number of deaths linked to the heat wave could be around 5,000, but added that more precise figures would be known in the next few weeks.

Nevertheless, the government has temporarily lifted a ban on weekend truck deliveries for transporters carrying funerary items, notably coffins, in an effort to clear a backlog of burials and cremations.

The deadly heat wave, which roasted France for the first two weeks of August, claimed mostly elderly victims unable to cope with the 40-degrees-Celsius (104-degrees-Fahrenheit) temperatures.

The PFG said that the Paris region itself had recorded 3,000 more deaths than was typical for this time of year, based on comparisons with the number of August funerals in previous years.

And ty the end of the month, the group estimates, some 13,600 more funerals than usual will have taken place across France.

However, the head of the Paris municipal funeral services, Alain Morell, also voiced caution about the estimates aired so far, while acknowledging a "sharp rise" in the number of deaths this month in the capital, compared with August 2002.

Preliminary official estimates shown to AFP by the ministry for the elderly on Wednesday evening showed that half the surplus of deaths took place in retirement homes. The final count will probably not be completed by the end of the week, officials said.

The revelation is potentially embarrassing for Raffarin, who early on had claimed that the high toll among the elderly was attributable to their isolation from friends and relatives during the summer holiday rather than failures in the health services.

Chirac, who refused to cut short his vacation when the scale of the disaster became known, has ordered the ministers concerned to give detailed answers as to how the heat wave and its health consequences were handled.

Accounts were to be given at a regular cabinet meeting to be chaired by Chirac on Thursday, his office said.

Doctors' groups and the left-wing opposition have accused the government of failing to act quickly enough to tackle the heat wave crisis even after it became clear that it was claiming a terrible toll, particularly among elderly citizens.

France's surgeon-general Lucien Abenhaim resigned Monday, but told newspapers he was merely a "scapegoat" and suggested his superiors in the health ministry had a share of the responsibility.

Mattei has been singled out for much of the blame but has refused to step down, saying he was informed about the scope of the crisis too late.

TERRA.WIRE