Special to WorldTribune.com
By John J. Metzler, July 31, 2026
PARIS — France has had a bad Summer.
First came the heatwaves, later there was the respite of World Cup Football amid cooler days, and then in the midst of the World Cup finals, France lost badly and the heat and wildfires returned anew.
France’s powerful national team, les Bleus, was a genuine short list contender to win this year’s FIFA World Cup. But in semi-finals, the French fell to Spain. And in the playoffs for third place, Les Bleus were vanquished by England. Thus, there’s been a sour mood, now only replaced by the annual battle with forest fires and a rebounding heat wave reflecting the El Niño weather cycle.
The first heatwave in June was part of a wider Europe-wide scorcher where temperatures went from the usual hot 80’s and 90’s to the dangerously broiling numbers of 90’s to low 100’s.
The heat waves, or canicules, recalled the now record swelter of the Summer 2003 complete with the predictable forest fires in the south and the pine barren blazes in the south-east. The August 2003 canicule caused as many as 15,000 deaths, mostly of older home-bound people.
French residents jammed stores looking for air conditioners amid a brutal heat wave. Only about 25% of French homes have AC. / Video Image
Many French hold almost religiously to the political mantra of Global warming, now morphed into Climate Change. So if that’s the thesis, why then have they done so little to mitigate these symptoms of Hot Summers? Naturally there’s the official Green government position which has genuinely lessened Carbon emissions.
France and the European Union countries are tirelessly proving they are leaders in cutting emissions though given the usually poor air quality in Paris that’s hard to believe. There’s also a less than subtle superiority complex mixed with predictable virtue-signaling that they don’t need American advice and technology.
But what about making homes, apartments, and the public transportation cooler for people who live in the present and not in the hypothetical climate charts of ten and fifteen years hence?
Air conditioning has been a taboo among much of the political Left and many others too. The old excuse, “It never really never gets that hot here” is contradicted by their beloved climate numbers and charts. Many newer buildings and homes do have air conditioning, as do most hotels and department stores. This is normal for a prosperous country. But many schools, hospitals and civic centers still lack basic AC. And this in a modern European country?
But then use the Parisian modern bus network, the extensive RATP system, and enter a world where air conditioning or even air circulation on a crowded bus is nearly a futuristic concept which would have made Jules Verne laugh. Brand new hot buses with stuffy air remain the norm. And the historic Paris Metro (subway) seems in the dark about the subject.
RATP buses and others powered by electric, hybrid, bio-methane, or natural gas are as new or newer than anything plying the equally clogged streets of New York or Washington, but here are missing air conditioning, although we found a few buses by chance which sported AC!
What is the human cost of this omission? Besides sweat and tears, there’s the very real danger of heat-related deaths, many of which are avoidable. During June’s oppressive heatwave, France recorded at least 5,700 more deaths the public health agency conceded, sharply increasing its estimates of the feared mortality rate from record-shattering temperatures, stated the news site France24.
Then there’s the tinderbox conditions affecting woodlands both in southern France and Spain.
Tragically, the wildfire season in the south has become worse given the combination of heat, winds and dryness. The national daily Le Figaro headlined, “National Mobilization against the giant Wildfires.” Blazes in the south-western Gironde region near Bordeaux have forced 220,000 people to evacuate their homes for safety so far.
The annual scenes of water bomber aircraft have been augmented by the new Airbus-400. To stem the spread, the Airbus military cargo aircraft has been modified for firefighting in southwest France. Flying low over arid wood lands, the aircraft sprayed a stream of a reddish colored fire retardant. housands of firefighters and soldiers have been battling the numerous blazes, many which were started by cigarettes.
For France, the country which had such technological breakthroughs as the TGV high-speed trains and the supersonic Concorde jet airliner, expanding simple air-conditioning should be a no brainer.
Given that many European countries don’t rely solely on fossil fuels to produce electricity, and France especially has a powerful nuclear power production component, making efficient air-conditioning commonplace should be hardly less taboo and more simply just common sense.
John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism the Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China (2014). [See pre-2011 Archives]
