France, Aug. 15 -- Nadia lives in the town of Aubervilliers, just north of Paris.

At noon, she returns from her night shift at the hospital. Upon arriving at her apartment building, in a public housing complex built in the 1970s, she takes the only one of the four lifts still in service.

As she opens the door to her apartment, the heat that escapes is in stark contrast to the relative cool of the hallway. All the windows in Nadia's apartment face the street and, she tells RFI: "The sun beats down from 7am until 7pm."

As France experiences its fifth heatwave since May, the situation is becoming particularly difficult for people like Nadia, who live in urban heat islands like Aubervilliers, Saint-Denis and La Courneuve - all commuter tow...