As record-breaking extreme heat sweeps across Western Europe, one of Paris’ most beloved cultural landmarks has emerged as a silent public health threat, disproportionately endangering the city’s most vulnerable residents.
For decades, Paris’ sweeping skyline of muted gray zinc rooftops has captivated artists, filmmakers, and tourists, embodying the timeless romantic charm of the French capital. The centuries-old craft of shaping and installing these zinc sheets is even inscribed on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity, celebrated for its durability, malleability, and recyclability. But as climate change drives more frequent and intense heat waves, the metallic property that makes zinc ideal for construction — its ability to absorb and conduct heat — has turned thousands of attic apartments under these iconic roofs into dangerous heat traps.
Amelie Kenney, a 23-year-old recent graduate, once counted herself lucky to snag her tiny top-floor walkup: at 735 euros total for a shared apartment with a postcard-perfect view of Parisian rooftops and the distant Sacré-Cœur basilica, it was one of the most affordable options in central Paris. Like many young students and low-income Parisians priced out of larger, lower-floor units less exposed to direct sun, Kenney traded comfort for location and cost. That bargain has turned into a grueling ordeal as the 2024 June heat wave pushed daytime temperatures past 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), with overnight temperatures lingering at 25 C (77 F) — too warm to offer any relief from accumulated heat.
“It’s just baking in the whole afternoon and it’s impossible to just get a respite,” Kenney explained. Her apartment’s single west-facing window basks in direct sun from midday through dusk, and the layout offers no space for cross-ventilation to flush out trapped heat overnight. She and her roommate, both used to warm climates from their home countries of Australia and Italy, have tried every low-cost trick to cool down: a small portable fan, frequent cold showers, wet sponges to cool their skin, constant hydration, and a constant, exhausting cycle of opening and closing the window to trade heat for traffic noise. “It’s a very, very Kafkaesque cycle,” she said. If she could afford to move now, she added, she would leave immediately.
This is not a new crisis, but decades of urban planning policy have left the city ill-equipped to address it. Public health data has long documented the deadly risk of these attic apartments. A 2023 analysis from France’s national public health agency found that during the catastrophic 2003 European heat wave — which killed 15,000 people across France — living in a top-floor attic apartment directly under a zinc roof increased a resident’s risk of heat-related death by more than four times. A 2023 study published in *The Lancet Planetary Health* further confirmed that among 30 major European capitals, Paris carries the highest overall risk of heat-related death.
Housing advocates say strict zoning rules designed to preserve Paris’ historic architectural character — including its iconic zinc skyline — prevent many low-income residents from adapting their homes to rising heat. Maider Olivier, a campaigner with the Foundation for Housing for the Disadvantaged, notes that these iconic attic spaces are not just uncomfortable: they are disproportionately occupied by low-income residents and young students who already pay a large share of their income for small, substandard housing.
“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,” Olivier explained. “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.” Worse, she added, many residents are blocked from adding insulating materials or exterior sun-blocking shutters by regulations that prioritize protecting the city’s skyline over the health of the people who live under it. “These regulations which protect the rooftops of Paris do not protect the people who live beneath those rooftops,” she said.
Unlike modern commercial buildings in Paris, which are largely equipped with air conditioning, most older private apartments in the city’s dense central Haussmann neighborhoods lack cooling systems — a common feature across much of Europe, where extreme heat was once a rare anomaly. As climate change continues to push temperatures higher and heat waves become more frequent, the gap between protecting Paris’ cultural heritage and safeguarding the health of its most vulnerable residents has grown into a pressing public health emergency.