LONDON, July 2 (Reuters) - Four people died in Spain, two in France and two in Italy as an early summer heatwave continued to grip much of Europe on Wednesday, triggering health alerts and forest fires and forcing the closure of a nuclear reactor at a Swiss power plant.

France's ecological transition minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, said the two deaths in her country were a result of "heat-related illness". It comes as France registered its second-hottest June since records began in 1900. June 2025 only trails behind June 2023, when the country also experienced intense heat.

The heat was so expansive that mountaintops, including the French Alps, that are usually frozen from snowpack saw record temperatures. Heat records were set for June in Spain and Portugal.