How a town in Provence is adapting to hotter summers

As summers get hotter, the town of Cuers, Var, is adapting. Jean-Jacques Roux, who heads its municipal services, tells The Connexion of the mairie's new plans.

“What are we going to tell them?” 

That was the question Jean-Jacques Roux, director general of municipal services in Cuers (Var), asked the town’s mayor in June 2022 when TF1 called to announce they were sending a news crew over.

Cuers had just recorded almost 38C, then a record temperature in France for June. The town had long regarded high temperatures as par for the course in southern France, but this was something else.

During filming, officials measured the road outside the collège: 61C.

“That number was a real shock,” said Mr Roux, who was appointed to his role in 2020.

From there, the municipal team began experimenting.

Those trials now form part of Cuers’ Ville basse température l’été project, a climate-adaptation programme built around a simple principle: repair today to prepare for tomorrow.

Once dismissed with some amusement, the town of 13,000 locals has since become a testing ground.

Larger municipalities, including Lyon, have contacted Cuers – the ‘s’ is pronounced – to compare approaches.

The third edition of the Ville basse température l’été event was held in Cuers on September 23.

Record breaking heat

Did that 38C temperature recording change everything?

July and August have always been hot months in the south. No big deal. We had never seriously considered the issue.

But the 61C road reading made us realise that we could not leave things as they were. A second measurement, taken beneath mature trees, showed that the ground was around 30C cooler in the shade.

61C is the kind of figure you usually only see at the start of a Formula One race...

Yes, except here it is our residents walking on these streets, not the most highly engineered cars in the world with top-performance tyres.

A more recent news item saw the road surface measuring 105C...

It became even more extreme during this summer’s heatwaves. The difference between then and now is that extreme heat occurs in June and September – not just July and August – when schools, businesses and public services are operating normally.

How a town can adapt

What did you try first?

We worked on road renovations.

In the town centre, we tested ochre asphalt, rather than black, to reflect light and lower surface temperatures.

The first results were very encouraging. In direct sunlight, it was around 15C cooler than the black.

However, car tyres blackened the ochre surface and within months the difference dropped to around four or five degrees.

It costs a lot more than black, so we stopped using it on roads but kept it for pavements only.

How does the climate-adaptation project work?

From there, you built up the Ville basse température l’été project.

There are three objectives: to break up existing heat islands; to protect existing cool areas; and to prevent new heat islands from forming.

New buildings and developments give us the greatest freedoms. Planners can consider orientation, materials, shade, ventilation and the design of public spaces from the outset.

Existing buildings and streets pose a much greater challenge as adapting them takes time. Every delay makes future living conditions more difficult.

When asked whether locals should live more like people do in Spain, you answered “For that, society should organise itself completely differently.” Why did you not take that route?

Because a municipality cannot make that change on its own.

The town could easily change municipal employees’ working hours, or opening times. But lives still have to be organised around schools, employers, shops and other services, creating another problem.

A municipality cannot impose that transformation by itself. Cuers, therefore, has to adapt the town that exists today while designing tomorrow’s town differently.

What can towns learn from the Mediterranean?

Still, you are adapting some solutions already used around the Mediterranean, including in southern Italy and across Spain.

Traditional Mediterranean buildings offered another solution. Residents close shutters in the morning to block the sun, while louvred designs still allow air to circulate.

Planting provides another good example. Some streets are too narrow to accommodate it, while underground infrastructure can also make it impossible.

Each site requires its own combination of measures.

Is keeping public spaces usable also a social issue?

Absolutely.

I sometimes compare extreme heat with the Covid lockdowns. Someone living in a house with a garden and swimming pool experienced lockdown very differently from a large family in a small, badly insulated apartment.

Heat creates the same inequality.

Making a children’s play area usable during very hot weather gives families in poor-quality housing somewhere to go, for example. A shaded square gives important breathing space in the day.

The municipality, therefore, has a genuine public service responsibility to keep the town habitable and usable.

What has France forgotten about keeping cool?

“It is common sense, and it means bringing back practices that existed before but were forgotten,” you said. What have we forgotten?

Modern towns treat greenery as a nuisance. It takes up space, and creates damage and maintenance costs, meaning planners have increasingly prioritised convenience over shade and vegetation.

That thinking is now changing.

Mature planting provides shade, improves people’s wellbeing, and ranks among residents’ most frequent requests. Since 2022, Cuers has added around 30 trees each year to streets, parks and other public spaces.

The second example is shutters. Architecture has increasingly prioritised bringing as much light as possible into homes. Large glazed areas became highly desirable under the influence of a Californian architectural model.

Large windows facing south or west can turn a home into an oven.

Powerful air conditioning consumes huge amounts of energy and releases hot air outside.

How to keep cool

Can readers encourage their own commune to take similar steps?

Ultimately, climate adaptation requires a commitment at municipal level.

Readers have three main options.

They can speak directly to the mayor.

They can create or join an association, which might carry more weight when discussing the issue with the mairie.

Or they can become involved in local politics and join a municipal list.

Foreign residents are part of the social fabric of communities too, and can play an active role in discussions.

Do you see climate adaptation as a political issue?

I think turning it into an ideological issue is a serious mistake.

People can debate why the climate is changing, and who bears responsibility. Local authorities face a more immediate question: how to respond and adapt the territory?

Cuers as a climate laboratory

Cuers is sometimes described as a ‘laboratory for climate adaptation’. Is that a label you accept?

First and foremost, Cuers wants to remain a town that protects its population and their living conditions, today and tomorrow. That is a genuine public service responsibility.

But Cuers is also willing to act as a laboratory for other locations.

Other local authorities, including much larger towns, such as Pessac (Gironde) and Lyon (Rhône), have contacted the municipality to discuss its approach and compare experiences.

Faster experimentation will identify effective solutions sooner.

Sharing results with other towns can then help everyone make progress more quickly.