Twenty-three French departments are placed on orange alert as France is the victim of an early heat wave, with temperature records for the period. The thermometer should even reach 40°C in the south-west quarter this Friday.
Faced with the heat wave, the cities organize themselves as best they can. In Nantes, in Loire-Atlantique, the town hall opened some 17 paddling pools two weeks in advance, large areas of water allowing residents to find some fresh air.
Dozens of children run in all directions, in bathing suits, underpants or panties in this large paddling pool 50 meters long, it’s the water mirror. “ It’s very hot, we have a little girl of 18 months, here’s a little water point, everything is fine, to cool off explains Jean-Paul. In a tank top, he flees his apartment where the heat comes in even with the shutters closed: “ Either way the Earth will warm up since the rhythm has started “, he confides to our correspondent in Nantes, Matthew Bonhoure. “ We don’t have much choice “.
Cap screwed on his head, Alexis has fun with other children and water guns: “ It’s cold, and it’s hot when you’re not in the water, and it feels good “. He is the son of Sandrine, a forty-year-old worried about the years to come. “ It’s a taste of what awaits us so it’s worrying all the same. It would be nice if our government listened to the IPCC once in a while. That’s more the worry, it’s knowing when the political leap will happen “.
On the side of the town hall of Nantes, we assure that this burst has already taken place and for all the inhabitants, this is what affirms Cécile Bir, assistant to the parks and gardens: “ Our concern is really that there is equality in all neighborhoods. These 17 paddling pools are spread throughout the city. That is to say, you can go to a paddling pool in the city center, but also in the neighborhoods, you can also have access to the paddling pools “. The 17 paddling pools are already full, and it will continue because the mercury could reach 40 degrees here tomorrow.
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In Carcassonne, the fear of the heat wave in prison
Inside the remand center in Carcassonne, in the south of France, the high temperatures add to the problem of prison overcrowding that the prison has been experiencing for many years. “ 50 degrees in the shade », the expression takes on its full meaning for the detainees. Last Saturday, the heat was overwhelming, a prisoner became unwell during the night.
Prison supervisor Yoann Verschelle, of the FO union, denounces the crowding of prisoners in the heat wave, 5 in a 20 m2 cell. Some sleep on mattresses on the floor: “You should know that the Carcassonne remand center is a very old establishment, from the 1800s, 1900s », he explains at the microphone of Laurence Théault, of the Society service.
“ Unfortunately, not all inmates have access to a shower in the cell, so some inmates, like the incident that took place on Saturday, do not have a shower in the cell, they just have a small point of water so there is a sink in the cell, so obviously I let you imagine the problem, they can’t cool off, they can’t do anything “.
With 55 cells for 140 prisoners, this prison, like many others, is overcrowded. A situation far from trivial. On May 16, the International Prison Observatory (OIP) and Amnesty International call on France to make its prisons worthy by urgently implementing a national action plan against prison overcrowding, which is reaching record levels.
On May 1, French prisons had 71,038 prisoners for 60,722 operational places, “ an even higher number than in January 2020, when the ECHR urged France to definitively reduce its overcrowding in its prisons. “ Lack of a proactive policy “, the number of detainees “ kept growing from the summer of 2020, deplores the OIP. In remand prisons, the prison density now stands at 138.9%, resulting in conditions of detention “ particularly degraded and degrading, (…) exacerbated by the dilapidated and unsanitary condition of a large proportion of prison establishments “, underlines the association.
” It also poses a security problem since there are tensions, we can be attacked in relation to that, and here it degenerates with the heat adds Yoann Verschelle. Faced with this problem, the prison guard denounces the lack of listening. “ We are aware of the problem, it is a national problem. But the problem is that we don’t have enough prison establishments in France, we don’t have enough prison staff in France, concretely we have no solution “. As the heat of summer approaches, the trade unionist fears that the situation will get even worse.
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(and with AFP)