An artist captures how summer's heat waves hit Paris and its homeless so hard

PARIS (AP) — As Paris emerges from months of oppressive heat, cooler autumn temperatures are welcomed back like a long-lost friend. But images of France's hottest summer remain etched in memories — and in the artwork of illustrator Marina Antonova.

Paris is admired worldwide for aesthetic beauty, but the city kept hitting the news for another reason in recent months as record-breaking highs climbed beyond 40 C (104 F) on the roasting streets.

In a series of drawings called “Chronicles of a Heating Planet," Antonova has captured a city under intense heat stress, and how this impacted the homeless in particular.

“The heat wave made it so much worse," Antonova told The Associated Press in a recent interview at the Paris apartment where she drew much of her work. "Usually winter is the hardest part for homeless people; now we have a situation where both winter and summer are horrific.”

Her drawings show homeless people clinging to their knees, hunched forward in despair, or curled up on pavements in apparent defeat.

“It was such a contrast, people working in posh air-conditioned offices and homeless people sleeping in front of those offices," Antonova, 37, said. “I cannot imagine how people survived.”

Antonova has had to keep moving from temporary accommodations since arriving in France four years ago from Russia. Although friends helped, she was often coping with living under bad conditions, with mental stress and little money.

The acute suffering of the homeless resonated with her, and she felt anguish at not being able to help them more.

In winter, blankets can at least add warmth, but how do you remove heat when the body suffers all day and night-time temperatures are excruciatingly high? “You bring them water and ice but it never stops," said Antonova, who captured the bullying behavior of an “overpowering sun" through her choice of color.

“In my images there is a lot of yellow, an acid color," Antonova said. "Usually you associate the sun with something nice, this year it was very different for everyone. It felt very aggressive and dangerous, there were also fires around the country.”

Some of her other drawings show animals disorientated in burning forests. Deer even run toward fire because, whichever way they go, there is no escape. Nature is thus upheaved.

“What happens to beauty when the landscape itself turns hostile?” Antonova asks. “Wildfires burned across southern Europe and then — in a place long thought safe from them — at the edge of Paris itself. In July, fire swept through the forest of Fontainebleau.”

A historic fire devoured forests near Bordeaux with legions of people forced from their homes. Italy, Spain and other European countries experienced extreme temperatures in the world’s fastest-warming continent.

France recorded at least 7,200 more deaths than usual during successive heat waves this year, according to the national public health agency, based on statistical modeling using data from previous years.

“Chronicles of a Heating Planet" asks what everyday life looks like when climate change is no longer a prediction but a permanent condition.

“These paintings are not illustrations of a single event," added Antonova, who began drawing as a child. "They are observations of a future that has already arrived.”

Because of the heat wave's dramatic effect on everyday life, Paris became a tough place to walk around in the sunshine.

“I have an artist friend who still lives in Russia. When I sent her my new drawings of Paris, she said ‘Oh thank you, I will never go to Paris after this,’" Antonova said. “We called this series ‘anti-postcards.' The kind of postcards where you don't want to go to the place. It's a kind of sad joke."

Could future heat waves, for example, dissuade people from queuing at the city's ever-popular tourist destinations? "In five or 10 years Paris could get so hot people might not want to go here, not in summer, anyway,” Antonova suggested.

“My series about the heat wave gave me the opportunity to look at very familiar places with a new angle," she added. "To rethink the tourist attractions in a more sinister and dangerous atmosphere.”

Antonova drew on an iPad, often from photos taken on her phone in different parts of the city.

"Since I became an immigrant it was difficult to organize studios every time I moved, so I started working more with digital illustration," she explained.

“Usually I wouldn’t do drawings about something on the news because I would need a longer time to process and create the painting. Ipad gives you the immediacy because it’s so much faster.”

Illustrator Marina Antonova works on a drawing for her series called "Chronicles of a Heating Planet" in Beaumont-les-Valence, southern France, on Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Illustrator Marina Antonova works on a drawing for her series called "Chronicles of a Heating Planet" in Beaumont-les-Valence, southern France, on Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Illustrator Marina Antonova works on a drawing for her series called "Chronicles of a Heating Planet" in Beaumont-les-Valence, southern France, on Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Illustrator Marina Antonova works on a drawing for her series called "Chronicles of a Heating Planet" in Beaumont-les-Valence, southern France, on Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Illustrator Marina Antonova works on a drawing for her series called "Chronicles of a Heating Planet" in Beaumont-les-Valence, southern France, on Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand and Cambodia's foreign ministers exchanged opening statements in Singapore on Tuesday at the first meeting to settle a sea border dispute under a U.N. agreement on maritime law for compulsory conciliation.

At issue is territory claimed by both that is believed to contain large, exploitable amounts of natural gas and other hydrocarbons.

The decision to take the matter to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, was triggered by Cambodia in June after Thailand terminated a 25-year-old memorandum of understanding meant to resolve overlapping maritime claims.

Thailand’s decision to revoke the agreement came unilaterally after a sharp deterioration in relations and armed combat with Cambodia last year. The Southeast Asian neighbors fought over competing claims to territory along the land border in July and December. Several dozen civilians and soldiers on both sides were killed and hundreds of thousands of people displaced.

Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow and his Cambodian counterpart Prak Sokhonn led their delegations in the first conciliation meeting with the five-member UNCLOS commission, held in Singapore from Monday to Wednesday.

Cambodia called for a peaceful resolution, which “serves the peoples of both nations and contributes to peace, cooperation and shared prosperity in the region,” Prak Sokhonn said in his statement Tuesday.

He said Cambodia was compelled to consider other peaceful options and chose to initiate the UNCLOS proceedings “in keeping with its commitment to the rule of law and to the peaceful settlement of disputes.”

Sihasak said Thailand has been unwavering in its commitment to uphold international law and peaceful settlement in disputes. He argued that the revoked agreement “had produced no concrete progress,” as the two countries managed to hold only two meetings over a period of 25 years.

He said Thailand wished to “give negotiations a fresh start,” and that it had offered Cambodia an opportunity to hold direct talks, which Cambodia disregarded, before moving on to the UNCLOS conciliation process.

“Thailand stands ready to engage in this process constructively, with the aim of achieving, with the Commission’s assistance, a negotiated and equitable solution,” the Thai foreign minister said.

A fragile ceasefire between the two countries was agreed in late December, but tensions continue with sporadic incidents and large-scale deployment of military forces.

Any UNCLOS ruling isn’t binding on the parties involved, even though both countries are signatories to the international pact.

Thailand has been averse to having territorial issues decided by third parties rather than handled bilaterally. It has long felt a 1962 ruling by the International Court of Justice awarding Cambodia the hilltop Preah Vihear temple along their border to be unfair, contributing to ongoing tensions between the neighbors.

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Sopheng Cheang reported from Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow, center, prepares to attend the first meeting of a conciliation commission between Thailand and Cambodia under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, in Singapore Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (Thailand Foreign Ministry via AP)