The Meteo France agency maintains an orange alert, the second highest level, for a third of the country, with a gust of 213 kilometers per hour recorded in Manche, Normandy, while in the capital, a gust of 147 kilometers per hour was recorded at the Eiffel Tower.
Departmental and national authorities urged people to avoid risks and stay indoors in the hardest-hit areas, with train lines and classes suspended and hundreds of firefighters mobilized.
According to the electricity provider Enedis, some 50,000 homes had power cut last night, 20,000 of them in the northern region of Brittany.
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