For a month and a half, central heating has been on in student residences in Bordeaux and its outskirts. The outside temperature on the day of our shoot is around 4 degrees. But inside the apartments, several students complain that they have radiators that do not work.
We left a thermometer with a student to take the temperature at night at his home. “It’s 11pm and it’s 14.2 degrees”, he regrets.
Only 14 degrees while health authorities recommend at least 19 degrees in the main room and 17 for a bedroom. The student we met never takes off his coat, even to work. “To work with a coat, these are not favorable conditions and to sleep with clothes, it is not pleasant”, regrets Jason, student housed in a Crous residence.
He is not alone in this case, around thirty students would be concerned, in the residences of the Bordeaux crous. Some have found tips to heat up a little. Another student’s system D is these computer towers. “The computer tower is already a little hotter than the heating. The little that dissipates from the computer heats the room. It’s been running for a week, it bothers me to let them run but otherwise I’m cold ”.
So why don’t these radiators heat up? According to the CROUS, these would be isolated cases. Maintenance problems, in particular bleeding radiators.
The student unions, for their part, accuse the management of the CROUS of not worrying about the comfort of the students. Last October, already, they had asked that the heating be turned on a few days in advance, because of the cold. Categorical refusal of the CROUS who replied by email: “Add a sweater! I would like to remind you that the internal regulations, for safety reasons, forbid the installation of an auxiliary radiator in the accommodation ”.
Today, the director of Crous de Bordeaux regrets the words used in this email. “That there was a mistake, I regret it, I deplore it, there was no desire to rush the students”, regrets Jean Pierre Ferré Director of Crous de Bordeaux – Aquitaine.
In Bordeaux, the director of Crous ensures that maintenance will now take place in less than 48 hours, for the students concerned. What not yet put away your sweaters in the closet.