They rush towards the water jets of Place Saint-Germain, in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine). Florianne, Angéline and Elisa Martinez sprinkle their legs and faces. These three sisters spent their Friday, June 17, tracking down the freshness in air-conditioned shopping malls or in churches. The discovery of this fountain is a godsend when the temperature reaches 36.9°C. A record for a month of June in Rennes. A fatalist, Angéline, a student at Sciences Po, observes: “Since kindergarten, our parents have spoken of the 2003 heat wave as an exceptional event. The heat peaks do not surprise us. We grew up with it. We are the heat wave generation. » This Friday, fourteen other departments appear in red vigilance on the Météo-France map. Ille-et-Vilaine has been classified in orange. It’s already too much for Florianne Martinez, medical intern: “We thought Brittany was spared. Finally, we are now suffering from the heat in this region with a temperate climate. »
Forehead beading with sweat, Léa Viitanen nods. Posted in a corner in her itinerant creperie stationed in the heart of the market in the popular district of Villejean, the saleswoman takes advantage of the air stirred by two fans. “The heat forces us to adapt our work. Today, we cooked a stock of pancakes from the start of the market to avoid cooking in a tight flow. This limits the rise in temperature in the truck,” describe the crepe maker, who dreads the peak hour when all the crepe plates will heat up simultaneously.
Ericka Ilinga, 18, passes by the truck and rushes to a nearby stall to buy watermelon. His two little sisters who accompany him devour a piece. “I haven’t been able to swallow anything for several days because I’m suffocating. Even drinking is difficult for me, breathes the schoolgirl. We are going to go inside, close the shutters and start the fan again to protect us from the heat. » The young woman lives in a perpendicular street, a recent building and better insulated than the large towers of the district, built in the 1970s, which dominate Villejean. At their foot, the Kennedy slab extends like a roll of macadam to the metro escalators. Above, a few sheltered benches. All were taken by storm. “The municipality has not sufficiently anticipated climate change in its urban reflections, judge Joëlle Guillet, sixty years old back from the market. The reflections on the development of the squares have so far been very mineral. Today, we need to vegetate more to protect ourselves. »
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