“La Comédie is impossible! “Thérèse-Françoise, “84 and a half years old”, had a hard time crossing the main square, Monday afternoon, in Montpellier (Hérault), while an impossible dodger hit the slabs. “It is appalling! I was sweating,” she breathes, waving her fan. But finally ! “, this dashing octogenarian is cool. Like other seniors, surprised by the stifling heat that has befallen the city in recent hours, Thérèse-François armed herself with courage to walk to the Club de l’Âge d’or Bonnet, rue des Ovens (It can’t be invented).
Here, the air conditioning is set at 24 degrees. ” We are good here ! “, she confides. “At home, I don’t have air conditioning. So at 11 o’clock, when the sun starts beating down, I close the shutters, and in the evening, I get a draft. But it’s still very difficult. »
“Air conditioning, I pick it up here”
“Me, I just have a fan,” resumes Maguy, his nose in the cards, who presses his playmate who did not see that it was already his turn to play. “Air conditioning, I come here to get it! “Violaine, too, is suffocating, at home, “on the top floor”. So at the Golden Age Club, she takes it easy. “Last night, the temperature barely dropped,” explains this sixty-year-old, completing a puzzle of 1,000 pieces representing… a sun. “I have some tips, too. In the evening, I spread a wet sheet on the balcony, to cool the room a little, for example. »
But every night remains an ordeal. So with the heat wave, which should rage at least until Wednesday in the Hérault, the city of Montpellier decided, since Sunday, to open the Clubs of the Golden Age, usually reserved for seniors, to anyone who needs to spend a little time sheltered from the furnace, regardless of age. “As soon as the prefecture triggered the heat wave orange vigilance, Mayor Michaël Delafosse wanted to open Golden Age Clubs to Montpellier residents, whether they are members or non-members, explains Yves Barral, municipal councilor, delegate at Golden Age Clubs. On Sunday, we opened four. And from today, eight clubs are open, during the heat wave period, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., to all residents who wish. »
“We’re better off there than under the dodger!” »
This is the case of Patrick, 52 years old. This Montpellier resident, who still has a few years to go before the keel, came to calm down, and drink cool, this Monday afternoon, rue des Etuves. “The heat, I experience it very difficult at home”, confides this fifty-year-old, who gets up to mime the difficult night he spent, when the mercury struggled to fall below 25 degrees. “So we’re better off there than under the dodger!” »
But the non-members are still too few, to come to shelter in these clubs of the third age. It is not yet known enough, or, perhaps the inhabitants do not dare. However, during the last episode of heat wave, last July, “word of mouth, and the fact that the associative fabric communicated a lot about it, caused many non-member residents to come to the Club de l’ Golden Age of the Mosson”, to take shelter from the heat, confides Béatrice Cosme, the director of Prevention for seniors at the Municipal Center for Social Action (CCAS) in Montpellier.
But if the fact that the air conditioning is running at full speed is not to displease those who take refuge in the Golden Age Clubs, the grannies and grandpas we met all agree that if they come here, almost every afternoon, it is above all for “the bond” that they find there. Here, we play cards, Scrabble, we even do zumba and karaoke. “At home, I have it, the air conditioning, I don’t come for that! smiles Nicole, 72, who frantically shuffles the cards before attacking a game of tarot. “If I come, it’s for everything else. “We come to meet, to have a good time, resumes Gazi, 79 years old. The people in charge are kind… If they see someone alone, they come to see him right away, to talk to him. “A little heat, in these cases, nobody is against.