Parisians living in attic apartments are roasting under the city's pretty zinc roofs
In France's historic heatwave, Paris’ dreamy rooftops become a heat-trapping nightmare.
Before the heat struck, Amelie Kenney could boast that she almost had it all: a tiny but cheap top-floor apartment in Paris, with an enviable view from its minuscule balcony of the French capital's iconic gray roofs and even, when she leans out far enough, up to the Sacré-Cœur basilica atop Montmartre.
But with a historic heatwave making attic apartments like hers potentially hazardous for health, the 23-year-old recent graduate isn't feeling quite so fortunate.
“It’s been the worst week that we’ve had in this apartment,” she said this week as the capital and other parts of Europe roasted. “It’s just baking in the whole afternoon and it’s impossible to just get a respite.”
Many of Paris' buildings that look so picturesque from the outside are proving to be hostile, even dangerous for health, during the unrelenting record heat that is turning both the long summer days and short sweaty nights into battles.
That's particularly true for those living directly under the roofs of Paris – who often cannot afford larger, lower-floor apartments less impacted by direct sun.
Risk of death more than quadruples in Paris attics
Extreme heat can make them deadly. A study of a record-breaking 2003 heatwave blamed for 15,000 heat-related deaths found that living in a Paris attic room directly under the roof increased the risk of death by more than fourfold, France's public health agency said in a report last year.
And researchers who studied heat-related deaths in European cities for a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal in 2023 found that Paris had the highest risks of heat-related deaths out of 30 European capitals they looked at.
About three-quarters of Paris rooftops use sheets of zinc as covering, producing the city's magnificent grey vistas that have long inspired artists and filmmakers. The tradecraft of its zinc roofers is recognised as a valued cultural heritage for humanity by the UN cultural agency UNESCO. Zinc is weather-resistant, malleable and can be recycled. But as a metal, it also absorbs and conducts heat.
“People find the rooftops of Paris charming. There’s the image of the attic room. But in reality, when you look at who lives in these apartments, it’s often students paying a great deal of money for a small room,” said Maider Olivier, with The Foundation for Housing for the Disadvantaged campaign group.
“Not only are they extremely exposed to heat, but it’s also impossible to create cross-ventilation to get rid of the heat at night.”
Paris preservarion regulations hinder efforts to adapt to extreme heat
In the sixth-floor walk-up that Kenney shares with her partner, Francesca Pilia, also 23, they've squeezed a desk, a double bed and a small electric piano. The apartment's one window, protruding from the zinc roof, faces west, putting it in direct sun from midday to dusk. They split the rent of €735 a month.
“It was the cheapest place to be,” Kenney said. “I like that it looks out onto the square. I can see marriages almost every Saturday morning.”
“But now I think if I could spend extra money to be somewhere else, I would.”
Although office blocks, shopping centres, cinemas and other modern places where people congregate often have air conditioning, private apartments rarely do, especially in densely populated central Paris with its classic Haussmann-style buildings – named after the 19th century urban planner who transformed the city, giving it wide, tree-lined avenues and much of its architectural look.
Olivier, the housing campaigner, said that zoning regulations intended to preserve Paris' character, including its signature rooftops, hinder efforts to adapt housing to extreme heat.
“There are people who are unable to insulate their roofs or install shutters to block the sun and prevent their homes from overheating because of regulations to protect the rooftops,” she said. “But these regulations which protect the rooftops of Paris do not protect the people who live beneath those rooftops.”
Kenney, from Australia, and Pilia, who's Italian, are no strangers to heat. But the temperatures in Paris – with record highs for June nudging past 40C during the day and 25C at night — have been gruelling.
They've invested in a small electric fan, take cold showers, sponge themselves down with a wet rag, hydrate, and battle with the dilemma of whether to keep their window open.
“I’ll wake up and I’ll decide, it’s too hot, I have to open the window,” Kenney said. “An hour later, I wake up, I say, ‘It is too loud, I have to close the window.’”
“It’s a very, very Kafkaesque cycle.”
France takes nuclear reactors offline amid record heatwave
EDF cites environmental rules protecting river ecosystems as rising water temperatures force output cuts at sites on the Seine and Rhone.
France's state-owned energy giant EDF has temporarily shut down two nuclear reactors as a precautionary environmental measure, as the country grapples with a record-breaking heatwave that has already turned deadly. At least 18 heat-related deaths were confirmed in France as of Monday, and at least 40 people have drowned since June 18.
The reactors taken offline on Thursday are located at the Nogent-sur-Seine plant on the Seine River north of Paris, and at the Bugey facility on the Rhone near Lyon in the southeast. Both shutdowns were triggered by rising river temperatures, which EDF is required by law to monitor to avoid discharging water that could harm aquatic ecosystems.
Nuclear power plants use river water to cool their reactors before releasing it back into the waterway, typically at temperatures ranging from a few tenths of a degree to several degrees warmer than when it was drawn, depending on the site. During heatwaves, as rivers warm naturally, operators must cut or reduce output to stay within legally mandated discharge temperature limits.
Nogent-sur-Seine had already scaled back production on one of its reactors earlier this week "to limit the temperature increase between the water withdrawn from the Seine and the water discharged back into it, thereby protecting aquatic plant and animal life," EDF said.
A reactor at the Golfech plant on the Garonne river in southwestern France was also taken offline on Monday, with output reduced at a number of other sites across EDF's 57-reactor fleet, which together accounted for close to 70% of France's electricity generation last year.
Despite the outages, French grid operator RTE said on Wednesday that "France has sufficient generation capacity to meet electricity demand, including in the event of outages at certain production facilities."
France has placed more than half of its 96 departments under a danger-to-life red alert, urging citizens to avoid direct sunlight and exercise "absolute vigilance" as the heatwave tightens its grip. Météo-France reported that Tuesday 23 June was the hottest day recorded since measurements began in 1947.
The crisis is not limited to France. Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland are also anticipating scorching temperatures, which are starting to bring daily life to a standstill, with hundreds of schools shut or closed early and train services in cities including Paris and Brussels reduced to lower the risk of breakdowns.
This is Europe's third heatwave of the year, with forecasters warning temperatures could hit 43°C in the Mediterranean. The energy strain is already visible: in the peak days of last year's June and July heatwave, daily power demand rose by up to 14%, driving a two to three-fold increase in average daily power prices.
Scientists say the pattern is worsening. Parts of Europe are experiencing up to 40 additional days of extreme heat stress compared with the 1970s, according to a major new study.
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