In France, a Hot Debate Over a Cold Topic

As I write, there is a patch of hot sun slowly creeping across my back.  I am sitting at my dinning table with the balcony door open for the last few drifts of early morning cool air before I have to close the door.

If I had shutters or even a curtain, they would be drawn and latched till late at night, hoping to be opened again for sufficiently lower temps to bring in some cool air.   This is the French way of cooling the house if you don’t have air conditioning.

Paris and the rest of France is having another hot wave.  Sahara heat has flown its desert coop, crossing the Mediterranean to sizzle here.    If that isn’t enough, a cloud of orangery sand is predicted to fly in too.

Grit and heat!  Ah, romantic Paris!  If you are unfortunate enough to get caught in the 6 o’clock metro rush hour, your nose will definitely be immersed in whiffs of l’eau de metro parfum, a unique olfactive shock!

Forget about a sidewalk café in full sun!  Look for some seats in the shade if any are free!  Hoping for a freezing cold drink you won’t get is useless, much less air conditioning.  Better to head for the ice cream aisle in a large supermarket, if you want to cool off.

The most crowded sidewalks will be the ones sheltered from the sun, with barely a soul braving the sun-filled side. The cold water guys will be out selling tourists bottles of barely cool water from their buckets pools of quickly melting ice.  Expect long lines for ice cream, too.

The water won’t be near as cold as in the States but in survival time per importance. By this time, even a few degrees cooler is a welcome treat, even without the ice cream.

Having grown up in the south where 100 plus degrees F was the norm, sipping iced tea all day was practically a cultural pastime.  Waiting 10 or so minutes to cool off your oven-baked car and burning hot steering wheel was de rigueur.

I was shocked to learn when I first arrived here as a 20-year-old that the French not only frowned on the use of ice cubes and air conditioning but considered both bad for your health!

Refrigerators weren’t that numerous, where wooden cool boxes hung outside kitchen walls were the norm.  It seems Paris was not graced with long periods of really hot days, so AC was not deemed necessary.

That was certainly many moons ago, I know, but the debate is surprisingly still going on here!  France doesn’t embrace change easily, so every summer you can read multiple media articles about the adverse effects of air conditioning and ice water!

Today on a popular French news channel was a reminder about how bad air conditioning was on the climate and that it could be considered a narcissistic act to install one.  I agree about the deleterious ecological effects, but overly heated homes can pose serious health threats to the elderly.

France found out about that in 2003  “canicule”, when many nursing home residents expired from the heat.  The French use canicule, derived from the Latin caniculis for little dog to describe hot spells, aka dog days of summer.

Yes, most stores here are now air-conditioned, as are the large hotels and up scale restaurants.  Don’t expect frigid cold air in either, which for me is quite welcome.  Even some buses have been air-conditioned, I suspect for the upcoming 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.

The major argument against air conditioning is that it favors respiratory illness, spreads viruses, dries out the eyes and nose, and can cause thermal shock.

There is a thread of truth that AC could help circulate viruses without special viral filtering and poorly maintained commercial air conditioners could harbor Legionella bacteria.  During Covid, these were the most voiced excuses I heard.

True, AC is deleterious to climate and puts extra demands on electric grids, but summer heat can be dangerous and cause death in the elderly.

Ice cubes take a similar bad rap too. If you have been a tourist here, you may have noticed only a few ice cubes given to any cold drink, except maybe in an American fast food chain.  Even requesting some extra, will only fetch you a miserly few that quickly melt in no time.

Eventually, you acclimate to drinking barely cool water, which is tolerable in the winter, but not the heat of the summer! I really missed those mountains of ice that took up more room in my glass than the beverage!

Anytime I was seen floating too many ice cubes around, I was often reminded that it was bad on the digestion and would only make me hotter.  Really?

How was it that those frosty iced drinks were harming me?  Well according to the French, it slows down your digestion, interferes with your metabolism and even makes you feel hotter, God forbid!  Really? Strangely, I never felt that result before.

They like to remind you that sipping tepid tea or water would be better, you know, like the Bedouins do in the desert.   Crazy, I think.

I bet that if the Bedouins ever could down an ice cold beverage, their camels would be dragging portable solar-powered generators around to make ice!  To each his own, though, let them drink all the warm tea they want!

France and the rest of Europe have suffered from record-breaking scorching hot temperatures this summer. Despite oven-laced temps, I found another front-page article yesterday disclaiming any benefits from drinking iced water, and using air conditioning.

Flashing signs on buses and wall posters remind us to drink water often, and take advantage if needed of designated “cool rooms” available inside town halls in each arrondissement.

Most apartments in Paris lack air conditioning.  True, the older stone ones have thick walls that diminish hot temperatures, but if you face the western or southern sky, forget it.

What might warm you up in winter’s cold will fry you in the blazing summer sun, these days.  Yes, climate change has already brought 23 years of warmer temps to northern France.

Go talk to the Champagne vintners who now have to harvest grapes at the end of August rather than late September or October as before.

This year has been the third-hottest summer so far in Paris, with record-breaking temperatures in 2003, 2018, and 2022. I remember occasionally wearing a sweater in July and August and feeling deprived of summer.

Although we can have a few cooler days, as we did 2 weeks ago, the string of super hot days has become more frequent and longer.

Getting your apartment air-conditioned in Paris isn’t an easy process either, especially if you are facing the street.  There are laws in place that you can’t change the look of building facades here without the town hall’s approval.

So no air conditioning condensers can be placed outside that would be visible.   Even if you could hide one on a balcony, you would need to have your air conditioning proposal voted on by your fellow apartment owners at the owner’s general meeting held once a year.

God forbid the condenser could be found noisy, as if the constant street noise of motos,  honking cars, and sirens weren’t bad enough!  Since having an outdoor condenser would be a deal breaker, I considered alternatives.

I have a street-facing balcony on the 8th floor, facing East.  Last year, an expensive insulation overhaul of all outside building walls that owners had to pay for, was finished in my building.

Yes, there is a difference, but when I have a string of over 94-degree days and no real lows of night air to cool, it can be sweltering by late afternoon highs.

Two years ago, I bought one of those portable air conditioners that you hang the long exhaust tube outside on the balcony.  I had to make an opening on one of the balcony doors for the tube but didn’t want to for the bedroom as covering up the hole in winter is a problem.

It works well to cool one room, but not the whole apartment.  I have to push it to my bedroom and use a zippered cloth contraption that tapes to the balcony doors for the tube to hang out.

Despite that the cloth covering can’t be airtight, it cools well.  It’s just a lot of maneuvering and rigmarole!   I have been looking into getting a central AC unit that uses small drilled exhaust tubes to the outside in an inconspicuous manner that supposedly does not need to be voted on for approval.

When a slew of over 94 highs is happening, as this week, I use fans during the day, which do the trick till late afternoon.  That is when the bulky AC unit will be pushed back into the salon for some evening cool, to sip in comfort some of my favorite cremant(sparkling) wine from Burgundy.

Last year, I decided I wasn’t doing a summer again without ice cubes galore, so I bought a countertop ice cube maker!  It takes up too much counter space in my little Parisian kitchen, but boy, it is worth it!

Now this handy beauty cranks out enough ice cubes a day for any true Southerner’s delight!