By P Gosselin
French authorities seem to prefer seeing citizens suffer through heatwaves – and die by the thousands – than utilizing modern air conditioning.
Image by P. Gosselin using Grok AI
“Ecological virtue” has turned into a public health hazard
The French climate blogsite Cliumat et Verité writes about why the French have an aversion to ACs, even when temperatures exceed 40°C.
In his blog post “Pas de climatisation, s’il vous plaît ! Nous sommes Français!“ (Please, no air conditioning! We are French!), Nicolas Lecaussin discusses an ironic editorial from The Wall Street Journal that mocks the French government’s reluctance to embrace air conditioning.
He notes that French authorities seem to prefer seeing citizens suffer through heatwaves approaching 40°C rather than utilizing modern air conditioning. Lecaussin highlights guidelines from ADEME (the French Agency for Ecological Transition) that discourage general AC use. The agency states AC should only be used as a last resort for vulnerable people (like the elderly or pregnant women), and even then, only in a single room with the temperature set no lower than 26°C (approx. 79°F), due to high energy consumption and climate impact.
Lecaussin ridicules official government and healthcare service advice on staying cool without AC. These tips include wetting one’s face and arms, eating cold soup, covering windows with homemade cardboard protectors, and turning off computers and hair dryers to limit indoor heat. Lacaussin argues this forces citizens to live abnormally rather than taking real steps against the heat.
The Climast et Verité post points out that even though public health agencies acknowledge a major surge in heat-related emergency room visits and hospitalizations, many French buildings (which it calls “thermal kettles”) and even hospitals themselves remain without air conditioning.
France’s climate is known for its warm and sunny summers – especially southern France – and has always experienced heat waves. Yet, despite its aging population, the country refuses to install air conditioners. Instead, it allows thousands of elderly to die prematurely and blames the heat waves on fossil-fuel-generated prosperity.
Lecaussin concludes that prioritizing “ecological virtue” over practical cooling has turned into a public health hazard, asserting that France has nothing to be proud of regarding this stance.
If a prize were ever awarded for obstinate stupidity, some French officials would certainly win it.
Now the BBC has noticed all the fake Aircon adverts that appear on threads like this!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj6g41pzy41o
Allowing heatwaves to kill the elderly in great numbers is good for the bottom line of the French budget because it reduces the numbers getting pensions.
Covid did the same thing – especially the forced intubators.
Works very well and it’ll later be blamed on climate change.
Keep also in mind that they absolutely need to get rid of devices with high energy demand to mask the inefficiency of low energy density renwables.
Too right.
Same with Canada’s M.A.I.D. program.
Medical Assistance In Dying now being included in options for elderly people seeking nursiing home accommodation.
The French Agency for Ecological Transition sounds like a conspiracy to commit mass murder. The officials should be prosecuted as such.
Likewise the French president and PM, to complete the roster of criminals.
I am now 85.
Many times, I have met attitudes in younger people that are pretty obvious invitations to me to shuffle off and die.
Why should the French be different?
I know they like “vive la différence” but that is about the male/female difference, not air conditiners.
Geoff S
The terms Boomer, Generation X,Y,Z were created as a divide & rule tool to turn society against itself when needed –
and its obvious that you ” Boomers ” are the scapegoats of the trinity
( patriarchy, white male) the anger of Gen Z who can’t get jobs in a massively indebted, green energy world, is directed towards.
Can’t get jobs? they can get rich making stupid videos.
I’ve had the same realization about the invention of ‘generations.’
Seriously, does this jingoistic rubbish actually belong in a once serious forum about climate change?
Absolutely it does.
Policies based on flawed or contrived or misleading or fake “climate change” claims create consequences caused directly by those policies.
The “climate change” issues extend well beyond debates about weather and the earth energy balance.
While a question worthy of discussion, it is downvoted due to the negative and insulting phraseology.
Indeed, this WUWT article is rubbish.
Read about these 8 facts in the link to AC in Europe:
. Much of Europe has not needed AC in the past
. AC is already widely used in hotter parts of Europe
. Some European nations have ‘resisted’ AC – but its popularity is growing
. AC emissions are growing, but its climate impact could be limited
. Heat from AC can contribute to directly warming cities
. More AC could help to reduce heat deaths in Europe
. ‘Net-zero rules’ are not blocking AC installation in the UK
. AC is not the only answer to overheating cities
https://www.carbonbrief.org/eight-facts-about-air-conditioning-amid-an-overheated-global-debate/?utm_source=cbnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2026-07-10&utm_campaign=DeBriefed+Deadly+Europe+heat+EU+electrification+leak+COP31+president+interview
In the past, most of Europe wasn’t urbanized and forced into near windowless boxes for the sake of “efficiency”.
And your point is….?
Way over your head.
I agree. It’s a total miss
Avoiding what you don’t understand. How typical of you.
Oh, I understand the facts of the comment that “In the past, most of Europe wasn’t urbanized and forced into near windowless boxes for the sake of “efficiency”.
But what does that have to do with Sparta Nova’s post, or with the 8 facts I posted in response to his post?
They have to do with your belief that only CO2 can explain the current heat wave.
Not like you, though, Professor. When are you planning to understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics? Hypocrite.
No windows, no ventilation, thus no way for the heat of office machines to escape the building. I thought that this was obvious.
My point is that I have refuted your point.
Which of the 8 facts in my post do you think you’ve refuted? Do you even know?
I’ve refuted all of them.
Try refuting just one. So far, you’ve been an abject failure.
Indeed, the Professor here claims that the Second Law of Thermodynamics as defined on Wikipedia is flat-out wrong. And of course he has his own secret version that is, naturally, correct. But he can’t tell us what it is. I’ve seen four-year-olds with better logic than that.
To the contrary, everything I posted is consistent with the 2nd Law. What’s going on here is that you don’t understand science or thermodynamics, and have been digesting Denier talking points instead.
I’m not referring to you, Warren. I’m referring to “Professor” MarkW. I apologize for not making that more clear.
Sorry for my reaction. Thanks for clarifying
No worries. If you can teach him his physics, you’re a better man than I am. I’ve been trying, but as far as I can tell, he’s only got about three brain cells, and two of them are offline for maintenance. Permanently.
Mark W not only doesnt understand physics, he commits logical fallacies one after the other. All too common a behavior on wuwt.
Yet, if insufficient capacity to handle spikes in demand due to heatwaves, which occur, and always have, exists after spending $trillions on an “energy transition” it is reasonable to assume that Net Zero has discouraged AC usage regardless of what the legal text says.
If the “Net Zero” crew believed “hot” would be more prevalent in the future, or at least the next 40 years or so (the genesis for Net Zero) why didn’t they take some of the Net Zero cash and encourage AC installation? Unless, of course, they honestly believed that plugging in $trillions of renewables would make heat waves disappear overnight.
I strongly suspect they didn’t install enough capacity to handle so much AC usage so they discouraged it. That would be par for the course for bureaucrats
Until recent years, France never saw 100F sustained heatwaves. And your belief that advocating for net zero by 2050 is a cause of insufficient AC for French citizens is just that– an assumption. Without merit.
Never? Not ever in all the Earth’s existence?
Not in human existence. Emphasizing on sustained
If it’s happened before, it didn’t need CO2 to cause it. Which completely destroys your belief that it must be CO2 which is causing the heat wave that may or may not be a record.
Given how bad the ground based temperature system is now, and how much worse it was in the past, we really can’t compare current readings with past readings, with any degree of certainty.
Didn’t happen before during the existence of man.
Completely and utterly irrelevant.
Anything that has happened before can happen again, and it doesn’t need the existence of a little bit of CO2 to create.
What, you don’t think sustained 90 degree weather warrants AC? How about sustained 85 degree weather? Goodness. I’d be miserable living there too.
If you install only so much capacity on the grid, or that capacity is costly to operate, the result will be lower AC usage when most needed. If your policy results in less use of something then you are advocating for it. I don’t have to actually say “cut AC usage” to yield a result of “no AC”. You must look at the end results.
The assumption is supported by simple logic. Plenty of merit.
I said “your belief that advocating for net zero by 2050 is a cause of insufficient AC for French citizens is just that– an assumption. Without merit.”
Your post does nothing to dispel my argument.
You’ve made no argument whatsoever relating to my statement, because you made no mention of net zero leading to the suppression of AC.
It certainly does if you would think for a moment.
If you advocate for something that makes it difficult to attain something else then you are advocating for the lack of attainment of that something else as well. It’s the consequences of your actions (and words) whether direct or indirect.
Point stands. Plenty of merit.
There is no evidence that advocacy for net zero has suppressed AC. Its only speculation
So, the net zero people get a pass. A get out of jail free card so that may continue to harm people. Regardless of being warned about the flaws in their thinking. Dismiss those warnings with silly rhetoric or smear tactics.
It’s the human condition I guess.
So indeed you have no evidence. It’s the WUWT condition.
No evidence that you are willing to accept.
It’s a pattern with you alarmists. Only the evidence that supports what you want to believe counts as evidence.
Let’s ignore all the regulations that make it harder and more expensive to install AC.
Let’s ignore the fact that wind and solar are making electricity much more expensive and less reliable to boot.
Nobody has said the magic word “ban”, so the alarmists can ignore everything that has been done in order to pat themselves on the back about how much they care.
What regulations that make AC harder to install? Explain
Wind and solar are cheaper, without subsidy, than fossil fuel power generation. You are WAY out of date.
Unless you are a sycophant of M E Mann, you would realize that since humans have existed, the temperature has been not only much colder but also much warmer than today. What has changed, is the growth of large cities and the Urban Heat Islands which they have become.
The Urban heat island effect is far too small to account for the post industrial rise in global temperatures.
Not according to the data.
Regardless, as you admit, such warming has happened before, so until you can rule out whatever caused such increases in the past, you can’t claim that CO2 must be the cause this time.
The steep rate of warming seen since 1970 has not occurred before. Whether or not it has occurred before is as irrelevant as the claim that because you had a fever in 2008 and were diagnosed with the flu, that your fever today must also be caused by the flu. The causes of the two separate illnesses are no more connected than the causes of warmings in two different centuries or epochs.
It wasn’t STILL a serious forum you wouldn’t be here.
They are on the right track, but need to go further. Much, much further. What about showers? Think of the carbon and water footprint they have. Once a month is all you need. Sponge bathe in between, if necessary. To perfumes and deodorants, just say Non! Again, carbon footprint. Don’t get me started on clothing, but what’s wrong with burlap? The list goes on, but you get the point. Climate Calvinism. Because you deserve it just for being born.
Clothing. Nothing wrong with skin except imposed social moralities that are seemingly not based in science.
Oh dear.
Imagine a nude Nancy Pelosi on national tv wielding the gavel in congress.
There’s cruel & inhuman punishment on the American people right there.
No! Just, No!
That, sir, is cruel and unusual punishment!!
Snobbery from the French? Oh it’s much worse than that.
This goes back a very long way indeed
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition
Agincourt.
The best part? All those French “authorities” have AC in their government buildings and homes. Imagine that.
“Nos supérieurs” are protecting us “petits prolos” from “climate” by denying us air conditioning. Do they have a similar loonie destroyer of the environment over there, ….. one of these crétins?
In NYC, Madmani raised the temperature of government office buildings to 79F. Except on the floors were upper management worked.
Mamdani made that claim, people in the buildings showed he lied.
AC is American, so of course the French hate it.
While AC invention is credited to Americans, AC in and of itself is not nationalized.
Actually it is American, exported to those intelligent enough to use it.
Isn’t nuclear power American as well?
I dunno, what did they do in French West Africa, or Indochina? Likewise, how did the English/British survive in India, the Middle East, or the Outback? How did we (‘Mercans) conquer Arizona and Texas? There was no AC then, either.
Well, back then the planet had Goldilocks climate conditions everywhere doncha know.
But once the calendar flipped over to 1950, the planet caught a fever from manmade CO2, and here we are – folks dropping in the streets from climate change.
(but not nearly as many who are carking in the streets from fentanyl overdoses mind you)
Carking: The fentanyl fold refers to a posture seen in individuals under the influence of fentanyl, where they are bent at the waist, unresponsive to nearby goings on. There a a few images on the web.
Which one causes people to shout at thin air?
It’s a lot easier to do without something that doesn’t exist in the first place.
They all didn’t survive. They just accepted that a lot of the elderly and infirm would die from the heat each summer. A little harder to accept when a simple solution is available to save them. It’s like saying, “I dunno, how did they survive before we had vaccines for polio, smallpox and measles.”
People were much, much more likely to die from cold than heat, particularly the elderly. That’s part of the reason retirees prefer warm climates. I think you also (sort of) support the existence of AC- it makes life much more comfortable, so we aren’t living like we did two hundred years ago.
They also didn’t have big cities. Also the lack of large populations meant things like swamp coolers worked much better.
Any arid climate makes swamp coolers that much better.
Lots of people makes arid climates less arid.
Since March 2011, the five overseas departments and regions of France are:
Well some more merit order aircon demand wouldn’t go astray in Barcelona-
Worried investors and negative electricity prices: Has Spain’s solar boom really turned ‘bust’?
Manuel from Barcelona is saving a whole 10 Euros a month compliments of solar investors finding no merit whatsoever when the sun shines on them all but that apparently helps cut some wee merit from coal and gas power producers when they’re extremely meritorious. Clearly said poor solar investors will require much meritoriosity from Gummint here.
Gazpacho (cold soup) is awesome! Strangely, the only time I saw it in the stores when I lived in France was around Christmas. It was probably surplus stuff from Spain. I still bought it and enjoyed it.
“Gazpacho (cold soup) is awesome!”
Rimmer does not agree.
When I was about ten I was told that blood passes by any point in the body very 8 minutes. And the wrist was a good place to use for cooling down. I used to stick my arms in the cold cow watering trough for several minutes to get cool when living on the farm in the summer.
Didn’t know that-interesting. My Dad would serve me hot coffee during scorchers and always said the heat from the coffee would cool me down. It worked and I don’t know why altho I did read years later that the effect was accurate…I’ve forgotton the why but it was physiological not placebo. Caffeine in it maybe?
Warm drinks can help cool a person down by increasing sweat production, which, when it evaporates, removes heat from the body. This effect is most effective in dry conditions where sweat can evaporate easily. Also, by promoting vasodilation, which enlarges blood vessels near the skin to release heat.
Caffeine causes blood vessels to restrict. That would reduce the supply of blood to the skin.
If the water is colder than about 50F, then the body automatically starts restricting blood flow to the skin.
Still works, just not as well.
I saw a documentary some time back. It was about experimenting with athletes and cooling them down. They have the men and women exercise mightily, then had them hold cold metal tubes in their hands. They cooled down very quickly.
All of France is at or north of the latitudes of Chicago and New York, and the French climate is moderated by maritime influences, so in general a bit cooler with more pleasant summers than most of the United States. Generality aside, France has always had heat waves since long before the modern climate change frenzy. They have lived without air-conditioning for centuries, so what has changed? Modern versus traditional building designs. Even so, some people die during summer heat waves in France as they always have. In general their bigger challenge is staying warm during cold winters.
Modern French designs standards play on the strengths of their historic designs and emphasize design features that minimize the use of refrigerated cooling. American architecture in contrast depends increasingly upon air-conditioning because extended heat is a feature US summers in much of the nation.
This whole discussion or argument is just silly. Whoever wrote the article is just another ignorant journalist.
The same reasoning applies across most of Europe, the exceptions being those areas adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea. Does Canada have general air conditioning? Does Alaska have air conditioning? Those are places that are more meaningful comparisons with Northern Europe than most of the contiguous 48 states.
The phrase French Fries has a new meaning…….
Let’s have at look at 8 facts about AC in Europe:
Much of Europe has not needed AC in the past
AC is already widely used in hotter parts of Europe
Some European nations have ‘resisted’ AC – but its popularity is growing
AC emissions are growing, but its climate impact could be limited
Heat from AC can contribute to directly warming cities
More AC could help to reduce heat deaths in Europe
‘Net-zero rules’ are not blocking AC installation in the UK
AC is not the only answer to overheating cities
https://www.carbonbrief.org/eight-facts-about-air-conditioning-amid-an-overheated-global-debate/?utm_source=cbnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2026-07-10&utm_campaign=DeBriefed+Deadly+Europe+heat+EU+electrification+leak+COP31+president+interview
Let’s look at facts about hot and cold. Cold causes about 9 times more excess deaths than heat. End of argument.
What does your post have to do with the 8 facts I presented?
All human activities produce heat. When you combine people by hundred of thousands into cities, their activities heat cities and the masses of concrete around them retain heat. AC is one of many human activities which warm cities.
Isn’t that rather obvious?
The term Sirocco, in literature since 37BC, (so says the internet) is just one of about a hundred named winds in the world. My favorites are the Chinook and the Harmattan.
Chinook sounds like one of those racial descriptions that we are no longer allowed to use.
I am a regular reader of the website Climat et vérité, as well as the website Contrepoints (affiliated with the IREF think tank — the Institut de Recherches économiques et fiscales), whose current director is Nicolas Lecaussin. It should be noted that Mr. Lecaussin’s birth name is actually Bogdan Calinescu — he was born and raised under Ceausescu’s communist dictatorship. Mr. Lecaussin’s hatred of communism is therefore entirely understandable, in addition to being grounded in undeniable personal experience.
Believe me, many of my fellow citizens are absolutely appalled by the mindset that drives our leaders. Better to literally die from the heat and paint one’s windows white than to install air conditioning! Our healthcare system (supposedly the best in the world — give me a break) suffers from astonishing shortcomings. Redistribution can work when the economy is thriving. When difficulties pile up, we try to keep afloat the equivalent of a Titanic built out of Swiss cheese.
Perhaps this country and this system need to collapse in order to be reborn. I sincerely hope that this will not happen.
The problem is that thanks to “redistribution”, thriving economies quickly become struggling economies.
The French are hardly alone with this attitude since parts of Canada, especially Quebec, often take an anti-American stance when they see the US adopting or failing to embrace certain environmental matters. After all, it’s better for the populace to suffer a bit rather than abandoning the fight against climate change. Except they haven’t realized that fight was lost even before it began.
The left has never forgiven the US for winning the Cold War.
Serious question regarding pavements/sidewalks. Recently the temperature of pavements in London were measured to be 50 degrees Celsius, these pavements are typically black tarmac or concrete paving slabs. However in Portugal and it’s Atlantic islands The Azores and Madeira, the pavements are patterned mixtures of black and white stones which are aesthetically pleasing but I wonder if they have a practical purpose as well in that they don’t get too hot under the summer sun. Just a thought.
“If a prize were ever awarded for obstinate stupidity, some French officials would certainly win it.”
The primary contestants for this prize would include not only France officials, but also legislators in California, Massachusetts, Oregon and New York.