‘We have nothing to cool off with’: French heatwave exposes inequalities

Published 6 July 2026 · india

As people living in low-income areas are unable to escape the heat, analysts say the government’s response is insufficient. Paris and Chamonix, France – Ibrahim

As people living in low-income areas are unable to escape the heat, analysts say the government’s response is insufficient. Paris and Chamonix, France – Ibrahim Doukanthi prepares to plunge into the Canal Saint-Denis. It is almost noon, and the temperature in the Paris region is nearing 30 degrees Celsius (86F). He grew up just north of Saint-Denis, one of France’s poorest municipalities, and now lives in La Plaine, hundreds of metres from the Stade de France, the country’s national stadium. “The water here is completely normal,” he said. “It’s just that it’s green, so you don’t know what’s in it – that’s what makes it a bit scary.” He has been jumping into the canal – technically not open to swimmers – to cool off during the recent heatwaves. Like many residents of Paris’s sprawling, historically disinvested suburbs, Doukanthi had to be creative to beat the heat while living in an apartment building without air conditioning. “What I do is take the spray bottles – I call them ‘pshit-pshit’ – fill them with water, spray myself down, then sit in front of the fan,” he said. “It cools you off like crazy.” Sitting in the shade at a flea market in Saint-Denis, Natifa Segli, a municipal employee, criticised the government’s response to the heatwave. “I don’t feel like we learned the lesson from the 2003 heatwave. Here we are in 2026, and this heatwave was horrible,” she said. “Even at work, we weren’t sheltered. The temperatures in the offices were very, very hot.” For Segli, the only consistent solution is to avoid the sun. “We’re going to stay in the shade,” she said of an upcoming heatwave, expected later this week. ‘We really have nothing to cool off with’ In areas like Saint-Denis, access to cooling infrastructure is unevenly spread, Louiza Ammari, a childcare worker who lives in social housing, told Al Jazeera.

In her building, police banned residents from setting up an inflatable pool for children. As renters, her family is not allowed to install air conditioning. Though one municipal pool opened free swimming hours, she could not go because it does not allow burkinis. “We really have nothing to cool off with,” she said. In France, there were 2,025 additional deaths during the last heatwave, the week of June 22 – a week-over-week increase of 30 percent nationwide and 62 percent in the Paris region, according to the national public health agency. Extreme heat highlights existing inequalities, according to Bruno Villalba, a political science professor at AgroParisTech Paris-Saclay, specialising in political ecology and environmental policy. “The heatwave is merely a symptom of social vulnerability, particularly in terms of housing,” Villalba told Al Jazeera. Wealthier people can insulate their homes, afford a portable air-conditioning unit, eat fresh produce, or even leave the city for vacation when it gets too hot, options that are unavailable to many others. “It’s up to the government to step in,” Villalba said. “They tell us, ‘Stay hydrated, don’t stay in the sun, drink water,'” he said. “The French government did not sufficiently anticipate the acceleration of climate change.” ‘We are not all equally exposed’ There is a pervasive misconception of “universality” when it comes to climate deregulation, noted Mael Ginsburger, a lecturer at Universite Paris Cite focused on inequalities linked to the ecological transition. Although experienced by everyone, more vulnerable populations have limited resources to mitigate heatwave conditions. “We are not all equally exposed, just as we are not all equally responsible. There are significant inequalities in carbon emissions,” Ginsburger said. “Not everyone is equally capable of adapting, and there are certain groups that face multiple vulnerabilities linked to poor health, for example.” Among wealthy households in France, 70 percent consider their homes properly insulated to combat heat, compared with 46 percent of lower-income households, according to Ginsburger’s research.