Scorching summer: a Provençal town committed to lowering the temperature

"We are putting all the solutions to the test a little bit," summarizes Bernard Mouttet, mayor of the town of 13.000 inhabitants who launched his approach after a record heat peak in June 2022. "Climate change is here (...) now we have to take action" and "adapt our buildings, our streets, our spaces," he told AFP.

In front of the town hall, around the sun-baked parking lot, passersby seek refuge in the shade of the trees. In the adjacent square, workers are installing the last shade sails overhanging a playground.

"By taking the ground temperature, if in the sun it is 60 degrees, under the shade sails we manage to lower the temperature by almost half," emphasizes the mayor, various center.

Nestled amidst the wooded hills and vineyards of the Toulon hinterland, Cuers devotes between 200.000 and 300.000 euros each year to its adaptation projects, out of approximately five million euros of investment in works.

There are tree plantings --about thirty each year, ash, elm, plane trees-- and the laying on the sidewalks of a pitch-based coating avoiding petrochemicals and of light color to lose 25 degrees at ground level.

With occasional glitches that the town hall acknowledges: this same coating was not suitable for the road and blackened under the tires, losing its benefits.

"Low-temperature city"

The school complex—two primary schools, 22 classrooms—was rebuilt for €13 million according to the "Mediterranean Sustainable Building" label, featuring suspended ceilings and wood-fiber walls, as well as mashrabiya screens on the windows to provide shade. Replacing the asphalt playground was a permeable surface, allowing water to seep into the ground, and dotted with green "oases" decorated with lavender.

There is no air conditioning here, but a system sprays micro-droplets of water onto cooling panels, reducing the temperature of the classrooms "by almost ten degrees", according to the town hall.

In 2025, the local urban development plan was modified to guide private land towards certain developments, the choice of materials or the orientation of buildings for optimal ventilation.

This commitment is already inspiring others, and Cuers is organizing the third edition of its trade fair in September to promote its "low temperature city in summer" concept.

"At the beginning of the process, many mayors laughed. And now, we realize that Cuers is being used as an example," Mr. Mouttet proudly states.

He mentions "the email from a town of 50.000 inhabitants near Bordeaux, which wants to develop our concept."

Cool islands

Closer to home, the neighboring Var commune of Carnoules was also inspired by this by installing shade sails in the courtyard of the primary and nursery schools.

This prevents the ground from heating up, "protects the facades and windows of the ground floor", preventing "reverberation in the classrooms" and lowering the temperature by about seven degrees inside, Mayor Christophe Cortes is pleased to announce.

Air conditioners have been installed in four classrooms and in the school cafeteria. In his town, the mayor wants to "add even more greenery": "it is urgent that we have these pockets of coolness."

This commitment, at their level, from the municipalities, comes at a time when the government is facing criticism amid a surge in heatwave episodes which, for some, have revealed the country's lack of preparedness.

These include cuts to the Green Climate Fund, which is intended to finance local government projects for climate change adaptation. Funding will be reduced by two-thirds between 2024 and 2026, from €2,5 billion to €837,5 million.

Guillaume Pouyanne, a lecturer and researcher at the University of Bordeaux, hopes for "a little more political will," given that "there is an overlap of skills which means that ultimately, everyone needs to be brought together around the table."

But, he concedes, "public action is slow." Yet the heatwave "foreshadows, in a way, our future, the climate of tomorrow. This kind of event will become more frequent."