Major flooding caused by a slow-moving storm system in Europe prompted water rescues and evacuations in France Wednesday and caused the Seine River to overflow. 

Authorities in the town of Nemours evacuated the town's center on Wednesday, and members of a canoe club were among those assisting in the rescues. 

The Seine River overflowed its banks and Paris City Hall shut down roads along its shores from the Left Bank in the east to the Eiffel Tower neighborhood in the west. Water levels rose at least 14 feet higher than usual. 

In the Pas-de-Calais region of far northern France, rescue workers evacuated some residents and ordered others to higher floors in their homes as rivers rose as much as 3 feet in some areas, local authorities said.

(MORE: Severe Flooding Kills at Least 4 in Germany)

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told the Associated Press that emergency workers have carried out more than 8,000 rescue operations from the Belgian border south to the Burgundy over the past two days. He urged people to exercise the "greatest caution." 

France has seen rain and storms now for several days. During a sudden storm Saturday, a lightning bolt struck a children's birthday party at a Paris park. Five of the 11 people hit remained hospitalized Tuesday.

All matches at the French Open were canceled Monday, the first all-day shutdown in 16 years. Matches got underway on Tuesday, but play was soon disrupted again by rain.

Canadian tourist Helene Gazaille, who was visiting Paris to celebrate her 50th birthday, was determined to have a good trip even if that meant stuffing plastic bags into her sneakers in the morning and using a hair dryer to dry them out at night.

Others like Tang Jiru, a 26-year-old Chinese groom-to-be, looked on the bright side of the gray weather. Posing for photos with his fiancee in the Trocadero's Warsaw fountains, across from the Eiffel Tower, he said he was pleased despite - or maybe even because of - the driving rain.

"The weather, it's like blue. Blue means romantic," he said, his white tie-tuxedo-and-waistcoat combo becoming increasingly wet as his 27-year-old bride-to-be, Liu Yuan Yuan, smiled in her rain-sodden wedding dress.

"Every time you take a photo, it's a sunny day. But it's a rainy day, (so) oh it's special!" said Tang, who is getting married in September in Shanghai but had flown to Paris for the express purpose of taking romantic photos.