In France, The Government Tries To Prevent The People From Getting Air Conditioning

A remarkable feature of governments in Europe is the extent to which they operate explicitly against the interest of their citizens and voters. They give an outward appearance of being democracies, and they hold regular elections, but somehow the people in power are a self-perpetuating political clique that, from all evidence, seems to hold the ordinary working people and voters in complete contempt. Prime examples of operating against the interests of the people include: opening the borders to millions of impoverished migrants who hate the host countries; and imposing a fantasy “energy transition” that drives up the cost of energy and destroys industrial jobs without any measurable effect on the climate.

A new example of the hatred of the governing class for the ordinary people has emerged in the past couple of weeks. You have probably read about the major heat wave that has swept across Europe, affecting all the major countries: UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and others. On Wednesday June 24, France allegedly had its hottest day ever on record. Here is a map from CNN showing high temperatures forecast early that day:

Whether or not the temperature that day actually reached 105 in Paris or 109 in Bordeaux, it was objectively very hot. Meanwhile, American readers may be shocked to learn that the large majority of residences in France do not have air conditioning. A source called hellowatt.fr here says that as of early 2026 only 27.4% of houses and 12.6% of apartments in France had air conditioning. (In the U.S., the figure for all residences exceeds 90%.). So the large majority of the French people were left to swelter through the heat wave. Thousands of schools were also forced to close.

As you might imagine, the experience of the heat wave has set off a debate in France as to whether air conditioning should be more widely adopted. I happen to be in France at the moment (on a family vacation) and picked up a copy of the Sunday edition of one of the national newspapers, Le Figaro. Its entire front page is devoted to the air conditioning controversy. (It’s mostly behind paywall. Here is a link to read the first several paragraphs (in French).).

Figaro commissioned a polling organization called Odoxa-Backbone to survey attitudes of the French toward expanding access to air conditioning. Excerpt (my translation):

The French favor a grand plan for air conditioning. 8 of 10 assert that residences, schools, hospitals, and public transport should be so equipped. . . . The large majority favoring generalization of air conditioning includes even 78% of Green Party militants. . . .

Well, that’s what the people think. But how about the members of the political clique that run the place? France currently has a supposedly “center right” government, with President Emanuel Macron and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu. One of the Ministers (equivalent to our cabinet secretaries) is the Minister of Ecological Transition, one Monique Barbut. Barbut is definitely not on board with letting the peasants have air conditioning. Figaro includes some extensive quotes from Barbut:

She says of herself that she is “horrified by people who tell her that all we need to do is put air conditioning everywhere.” For her, “it’s not a question of adaptation, but rather a measure that is appropriate only for an emergency.” . . . Barbut added, as what she thought was the definitive argument, that air conditioning would not “avoid any forest fires.”

Figaro includes its own editorial in its front page spread. Excerpt:

[Barbut] is an activist disguised as a Minister. . . . Barbut’s words are neither scientific nor ecological; they are religious. For her as for the other fanatics who confound care of the world with their own ideological agenda, the unquestioned climatic heating is not a phenomenon to which societies should adapt, but rather a punishment that we must collectively accept. . . . For them it is a question of atoning for our sins. . . . For such people to have a place in our Council of Ministers is a grave political mistake.

Meanwhile, the anti-immigration party called Rassemblement National has spotted an obvious opening. That party’s leader, Marine Le Pen, has recently called for a “major plan” to generalize air conditioning throughout the country. On the other side of the aisle, the most prominent leader of the Left in France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was quoted by Le Monde on June 20, "We must absolutely not install air conditioning everywhere; that would only make things worse."

Somehow the Left has gone from being the advocate of the working class, to seeking to punish the working class. Why, I cannot explain.

Here in the U.S., between May and September 2024, Phoenix, Arizona, had a streak of more than one hundred days in a row where the temperature went over 100 degrees every day. That city could barely exist without universal air conditioning. The same applies for all the big cities in Texas, Florida, and plenty of other states. I wonder how Barbut or Mélenchon would seek to punish the people who live in those places.