Secretary of State for Regional Development Hubert Falco of France

There are 300 families who have not realized that they have a grandma or a mother that has passed away," Falco said on the private radio station FMC, and expressed his shock at the "slackening ties" in the French society.

Mr Falco said the additional social security payments and taxes that the government would receive from an extra day's work could be used to set up and finance a special fund for the aged, as has been done in Germany.

the aged, as has been done in Germany.

private retirement homes had air-conditioned common rooms.

The toll in the severe heat wave sweeping France might have touched 10,000, French Minister for Elderly Hubert Falco said on Thursday.

Falco is the first government official to confirm estimates released a day earlier by France's largest chain of undertakers that the death toll from the heat, when temperatures topped 40 degrees Celsius could reach 10,000.

It would be, as is done in Germany, a bank holiday on which employees would work in the name of national public solidarity," state secretary for the elderly Hubert Falco said after a cabinet meeting.

Mr Falco said he had attended as a private individual and a Catholic, but that he was a believer in the secular state and "open to all religions.

In a separate interview with Le Monde newspaper, Falco said the crisis showed France is coping badly with the aging.

It's one of the possibilities, among many others, to try to find genuine solidarity in the nation," secretary of state for the elderly Hubert Falco said after a Cabinet meeting, The Associated Press reported.

Falco said "mortality linked to the heat wave was highest" among people over 85 - who now number 1.