This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
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story → publish → collaboration
By the time Cléo made it to Greek class, she had gone completely pale.
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she → make → class
It was a Wednesday in June during France’s second consecutive heat wave this year, and the 16-year-old was struggling to cope with the rising temperatures.
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old → struggle → temperatures
She pushed through, thinking she was just tired.
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she → push → ?
But the following day at her sweltering high school on the eastern edge of Paris, nausea and a desperate thirst gripped her.
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nausea → grip → her
The school nurse, recognizing the signs of heat exhaustion, told her to go home.
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nurse → recognize → her
This week, as she recalled the experience and worried about more heat waves to come, Cléo and her friends stood by a pile of green garbage cans, blocking their school’s entrance.
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Cléo → recall → entrance
For the past four weeks, scenes like this have multiplied at thousands of schools across France, where students are protesting to demand better learning conditions and more investment in public education.
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students → multiply → education
These student protests have become one of the most significant social movements in the country’s recent history.
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protests → become → history
They’ve been met with a heavy-handed police crackdown.
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They → meet → crackdown
Roughly 8,000 arrests have been made in three weeks, 85 percent of them minors.
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percent → make → them
Fearing repercussions, Cléo and other underage students who talked to Inside Climate News asked to be quoted using only their first names.
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who → fear → names
But the heart of the revolt is indignation over crumbling school infrastructure—a problem laid bare by climate-change-fueled heat waves.
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heart → crumble → waves
This year was France’s hottest on record, and the country counted 8,000 excess deaths during the summer’s heat waves.
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country → count → waves
In June alone, deaths spiked 11 percent compared to the same month in 2025.
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deaths → spike → 2025
France’s schools, meanwhile, were not built for the hotter world the students have inherited after generations of fossil fuel use have warped the climate.
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generations → build → climate
Many buildings were designed to hold onto heat; air conditioning is rare.
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conditioning → design → heat
As classrooms recorded temperature peaks above 100 degrees Fahrenheit this spring, schools reported incidents from fainting to nosebleeds.
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schools → record → nosebleeds
Students protesting this week outside high schools in the Paris area described a raft of problems in their buildings that made them feel abandoned by their government, including falling ceilings, moldy walls, out-of-service bathrooms, chair shortages and pest infestations.
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them → protest → service
For many, this year’s record heat waves were a breaking point that highlighted their schools’ inability to keep students safe in a warming climate.
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that → highlight → climate
“We’re here to claim our rights, we’re here to make ourselves heard because we’re fed up with this government, we’re fed up with this country and we’ve had enough,” said Koumba, a 16-year-old student at a high school in Montreuil, on the outskirts of Paris.
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Koumba → ’re → Paris
Marie-Hélène Azam is a professor of engineering science at the National Institute of Applied Sciences and leads a project studying how France’s primary school buildings can be adapted to withstand heat waves.
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buildings → lead → waves
“We’re realizing that, until now, we’ve designed buildings for energy efficiency in winter,” she said.
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she → realize → winter
“We need to find a way to reconcile comfort in winter with comfort in summer, and that means designing buildings a little differently.”
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that → need → buildings
Traditionally, French schools have large windows to maximize sunlight and warmth.
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schools → have → sunlight
That backfires when temperatures rise, turning classrooms into greenhouses.
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temperatures → backfire → greenhouses
And like many older buildings in France, schools are typically heavy structures with “high thermal inertia,” absorbing, storing and then releasing heat.
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schools → absorb → heat
This is beneficial during winter, but it can make classrooms hotter inside than out on high-heat days.
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classrooms → make → days
The way they’re hitting makes it worse.
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it → hit → ?
“With heat waves becoming more intense and lasting longer, we no longer have enough time to cool these buildings down at night or between two heat waves,” Azam said.
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Azam → become → waves
“As soon as the temperature of the building starts to drop, another even more intense heat wave arrives.”
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wave → start → building
Among potential solutions: exterior shutters to prevent the sun from heating up windows, ceiling fans to cool students and evaporative cooling technologies that use water to zap heat.
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that → prevent → heat
A spokesperson for the Île-de-France region, which oversees public high school infrastructure in the Paris area, said it allocated $1.2 billion to school construction and renovations this year, including upgrades to roofs and windows.
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it → oversee → roofs
During the heat waves, the regional government spent $1.1 million to open additional exam centers and purchase misting devices and fans.
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government → spend → devices
In France, air conditioning has so far been treated as a last resort for climate adaptation.
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conditioning → treat → adaptation
Many worry that widespread installation will worsen the “urban heat island” effect that makes cities hotter than rural areas: AC units push hot air outside, increasing temperatures on the streets.
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units → worry → streets
The protesting students aren’t focused on air conditioning. Instead, many say they know the heat doesn’t start and end in the classroom, and it will follow them long after they graduate.
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they → protest → them
Many of them cite climate change as a source of anxiety about their future, alongside concerns about the economy and how artificial intelligence will affect their job prospects.
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intelligence → cite → prospects
On Tuesday, Margaux Levy and Raphaëlle Richard marched alongside hundreds of thousands of protesters across France.
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Levy → march → France
The two are among the many university students joining high schoolers, hoping leaders will listen to the younger generation’s concerns.
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leaders → join → concerns
…and 16 more, not listed.
The Aporia
