Worldview: Life under Paris’s zinc roofs: It’s less romantic when the thermometer hits 40 degrees

From crossing to the shady side of the street when it’s not yet 9am, enviously eyeing up the tourists with their pastel parasols, to struggling to sleep at night even with an ice pack on their heads, Parisians are developing individual coping strategies amid a succession of near back-to-back heatwaves. Paris’s zinc-clad rooftops and handsome Haussmannian cut stone buildings with their large, elegant windows – in short, everything that gives it its charm – start to feel decidedly less romantic as the thermometer creeps up to and beyond 40 degrees. After enduring record-breaking temperatures last month, France is currently in the grip of its third heatwave of the year. The extreme heat is stifling and deadly. Provisional figures estimate more than 2,000 people died of heat-related causes at the end of June. French health authorities say that over the past decade, more than 14,000 deaths have been attributed to the population’s exposure to heat specifically during heatwaves, and nearly 40,000 over the entire monitoring period. Anecdotal evidence suggests that dense urban centres such as Paris are beginning to lose some of their appeal for those seeking greener, cooler neighbourhoods to live in and raise their families. While it wouldn’t be true to say there’s been an exodus from the capital, researchers say a gradual rebalancing away from city centres appears to be under way, a trend accelerated by the Covid pandemic and its repeated gruelling lockdowns. Many urban planners in France believe climate change could reinforce that shift, playing a more prominent role in migration patterns as heatwaves become more frequent and intense. Paris has invested heavily in efforts to mitigate the urban heat island effect – planting trees, pedestrianising streets, redesigning public spaces – but experts say there’s no quick fix when temperatures reach such extremes. Adding to residents’ woes is the fact that a large proportion of the buildings, constructed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were built to retain heat rather than expel it. During a prolonged hot spell, poorly-insulated flats – known colloquially as “bouilloires thermiques”, loosely translated as Thermos flasks – absorb the relentless heat by day and are unable to fully cool down at night. Buildings are only part of the equation when it comes to adapting to climate change. As this week’s disruption to the Tour de France illustrates, some regions are already on the front line of that battle. Remarkably, construction of these heat traps is not solely a thing of the distant past and – they were still being built as recently as six or seven years ago, according to Antoine Pothé, co-founder of property firm Visten Immobilier. Since then, environmental regulations introduced in phases since 2022 – partly in response to the warming climate – have tightened technical rules around the thermal performance of new buildings. As many Parisians are discovering, while it is possible to renovate older properties to a high environmental standard, the work is often complex and the costs prohibitive. On top of that, homeowners are restricted from making alterations to the facades, rooftops or windows of listed buildings. In contrast, new residential units can be designed from the outset, Pothé points out, to minimise solar heat gain and maximise natural ventilation – features that are difficult, if not impossible, to fully retrofit into older homes. “The speed at which heat enters a building can matter almost as much as how much heat enters it,” he says. “So in a well-designed building, heat will take longer to penetrate the walls and roof.” The use of wood fibre insulation – while more expensive than cheaper styrofoam alternatives – has also been a game changer for the industry because it slows down the passage of heat as it moves through a building, leaving homes noticeably cooler during the hottest hours of the day. But the developer says improved insulation needs to be combined with better design in order to be effective. Buildings are only part of the equation when it comes to adapting to climate change. As this week’s disruption to the Tour de France illustrates, some regions are already on the front line of that battle. Wildfire season has begun a month earlier than usual this summer, with thousands of hectares of land already burned. Questions are being asked about whether and how quickly the country can rise to these urgent challenges. The government is looking to neighbouring Spain for inspiration. There has also been heated political debate about air conditioning, with even the Greens accepting that it may need to be rolled out across schools, workplaces and hospitals. Despite the grumbling, people are doing their best on an individual level to adapt to what feels like a new normal, and putting alternative strategies in place to get through the immediate crisis – much as they do during regular debilitating transport strikes. One, Marie-Françoise – an older woman from the foothills of the Pyréenées – was evacuated last weekend as wildfire flames approached her home near Perpignan. When quizzed about her ordeal, she was in cheerful form on French TV. “Just don’t ask me to smile.” She’d been in such a rush to leave the house, she’d fled without her false teeth.