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

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.

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.