ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In France, the latest controversy isn't about taxes, the retirement age or even cuts to precious summer vacations. It's about air conditioning. Europe's summers are getting hotter, and some say turn on the AC, while others say, (speaking French). NPR's Rebecca Rosman reports from Paris.
REBECCA ROSMAN, BYLINE: It all started on a hot - very hot - summer day in late June, with a declaration that seemed benign enough.
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MARINE LE PEN: (Speaking French).
ROSMAN: "Air conditioning saves lives," far-right party leader Marine Le Pen told French TV channel BFM in the midst of a hundred-degree heatwave. She, therefore, found it, quote, "totally absurd" that the majority of hospitals and schools still don't have it. Eighteen-hundred schools had to close during the heatwave, according to the government. Le Pen said, if elected one day, she would install AC units across the country. Then came the response from France's Ecologist Party.
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MARINE TONDELIER: (Speaking French).
ROSMAN: Speaking to France Info radio, Green Party secretary Marine Tondelier said she wasn't against installing air conditioning in schools and hospitals, but she insisted it doesn't have to be the only solution.
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TONDELIER: (Speaking French).
ROSMAN: Tondelier said the real problem is poor insulation, which is why her party is pushing for more investment in energy-efficient buildings. A recent OpinionWay poll found only about half of the French public think all public spaces should be air conditioned. Only a quarter of French households have AC units, compared to 90% in the U.S.
NICOLAS BOUZOU: I had to sum up, I can say that the left is against air conditioners, and the right is in favor air conditioner.
ROSMAN: That's economist Nicolas Bouzou. In a recent op-ed for the French paper Le Figaro, Bouzou argued air conditioning isn't just about comfort, it's about productivity.
BOUZOU: It's very difficult to work. It's very difficult to study. And at the end of the day, it's very difficult to struggle against the climate crisis.
ROSMAN: And since most of France's energy is nuclear, he says the country can stay cool without warming the planet.
Here in Paris, 8 out of the 10 hottest summers on record have been in the last decade. Still, on this 90-degree afternoon, Parisians stretched out along the Seine, seeming unbothered, like 73-year-old writer Philippe Mezescase. I ask how he feels about the idea of more air conditioning in France, particularly after a series of hundred-degree heat waves this summer.
PHILIPPE MEZESCASE: (Speaking French).
ROSMAN: To which he says he's mostly against it. AC wastes a lot of energy, he says. Why not just open a window? Others are straight up offended by the question.
So what do you think of air conditioning?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I don't like this. I don't like. I don't have.
ROSMAN: And then there's Peter Soderbaum, an Australian who says he's baffled the French are even debating this.
What's the discussion on air conditioning in Australia?
PETER SODERBAUM: There's no discussion. You have air conditioning (laughter).
ROSMAN: Soderbaum has reluctantly adapted to France's air conditioning phobia. He says he keeps a fan in his home and uses blackout curtains to keep out sunlight during the day. But he also believes the French are delaying the inevitable.
SODERBAUM: Like, it will come, whether they want it or not.
ROSMAN: France and Europe is getting hotter - perhaps too hot to live without the AC.
Rebecca Rosman, NPR News, Paris. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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