I have been living in Paris now since January, and only just now made the decision on which gym to get a membership for. The problem was multi-fold. They are expensive, small, crowded, closed on Sunday, or just in general strange. But these are all minor points, and my fiance and I had the choice of two gyms nearby that are not too expensive and seem reasonable. But, the main draw-back was that only one has a squat rack, and it is the gym that is less convenient for the both of us. So in the end we got a membership at the gym without a proper squat rack, Neoness Denfert-Alésia.
To be more clear there are Smith-Machine squat racks, but I essentially don't count that. The Smith-Machine is where the barbell is fixed within a rack where it is guided so that it can only travel directly up and down. My guess is that this was invented to somehow optimize the process of doing squats or bench press or overhead press, but as far as I can tell this only manages to take away control of the weight and potentially put weird shear stresses on the spine. I will not step foot in a Smith-Machine.
There are also weight machines that can be used for squat-style movements. There is a plate-loaded squat machine where the weight is on your shoulders (good), but because there is still a fixed pivot point it can feel strange. I will use this for sure, but because of the awkward positioning I can't load it very heavy. There is also a machine for lunges where one holds the weight suitcase-style (also good), and one does single-leg style squats or lunges. This is something I haven't seen before, and I will also try to use it often, but again it can't be loaded heavy and a fixed pivot point takes away the need for full balance control. The last machine is the standard leg-press machine, but the former two are both better options in my opinion.
So, although there are some good options for doing some type of weighted squat movements, they are still machines. Luckily the gym has some kettlebells and 'power bags' (sandbags of different weights with handles). My plan is to use these to do weights goblet squats, lunges, clean/swing movements, and eventually start doing weighted pistol squats.
Long story short, I will miss doing heavy back squats, but at least I have options.
