When Marie-Adeline Daumas finally got the keys to a social housing unit behind the train station, right in the centre of Nice, she found it hard to believe. “I said to myself: finally, the struggles are over.”explains the single mother of two. It was a place with light, and then two bedrooms, one for each child. She was supposed to sleep in the living room, but that was not “not very expensive” for new accommodation in a newly completed building. “I was delighted”she said. But, from the first summer, in 2023, the small T3 overheats. In her son’s room, Marie-Adeline Daumas records more than 29 degrees. Every morning, the children leave sweat stains on their mattresses and leave surrounded by them for the day camp. The summer of 2024, “It was even worse.”
Between July and early September, Nice suffocated for more than sixty days. During the day, the 32°C on the thermometer could correspond to a feeling of 40°C because of the humidity. The valley bottoms, usually cooler, also reached abnormally high temperatures: up to 36°C. The water on the beaches reached almost 30°C. At night, the urban materials released the accumulated heat, between the walls and the overheated sea, making it impossible for the city to cool down. The result: a series of sixty-one nights called “tropical” in a row.
Marie-Adeline Daumas’ building includes private and social housing. In the small alley, two entrances: A serves the private lots, B the social housing. In building A, air conditioners are installed. In building B, with the patio that acts as a heat sink and the roof windows in full sun, it is impossible to breathe.
At her wit’s end, Marie-Adeline Daumas had to flee to her mother’s house, who lives in an old building. “with thick walls” in the city center. At least there, she can open the shutters and create a draft. She tried calling the landlord, Unicil, but to no avail. When contacted, the latter did not wish to answer the questions of the World. “We live in conditions where we are not respected as human beingssays Marie-Adeline Daumas, sobs in her voice. I would like the landlords to come and spend a week at my place in the summer. For me to take their house and for them to move in with me. I will leave them the keys. Maybe we can talk afterwards.
Heat decompensations
The entire Mediterranean region is experiencing the dynamics of global warming faster than the rest of the European continent, as the European Commission pointed out in February. And cities are even more vulnerable to the phenomenon because of land artificialization.
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