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Paris official hits back at mockery over lack of air conditioning, saying America shares responsibility for record-breaking temperatures
A Paris official has said she holds the US partially responsible for the record-breaking heatwave in France.
The comments were made as part of a scathing rebuke to American tourists, immigrants and expats who have been criticising France for its lack of air conditioning across the country.
Over the past week, the transatlantic discourse online has also been heating up, with some Americans – many living in desert and tropical climes in the southern US – mocking the French and Western Europeans for not being able to withstand temperatures to which they are accustomed to every year.
“Dear American journalists and social media ‘influencers’: for days, some of you have been criticising and making fun of Paris because the city does not have A/C in every room...OMG, this is so rich!” wrote Audrey Pulvar, deputy mayor of Paris for international relations, on social media.
“As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, you bear a significant amount of responsibility for global warming and the consequences we, in France, are experiencing. Your cities, which are 90 per cent air conditioned, are not unrelated to this.”
After listing Paris’s green initiatives, Ms Pulvar ended her posts by criticising the US for what she described as the country’s disdain for the planet. “So please, enough with the lecture. Just start doing your part. Best regards.”
Unlike the US, where air conditioning is common, in France only one in four households has air conditioning. Historically, the French have been sceptical about air conditioning: an Ipsos survey published earlier this month found that 78 per cent of French people believe that it’s bad for the environment and one in six respondents said they would rather suffer for the sake of the planet.
But last week’s record-breaking temperatures have shown that attitudes have shifted, with retailers across the country selling out of portable air conditioning units and videos capturing shoppers forming long queues and tearing at pallets holding units freshly offloaded from delivery trucks.
Preliminary mortality figures released Sunday by Public Health France show that the country has registered 1,000 more deaths than previous months since the peak of the heatwave on Wednesday, when temperatures edged past the 40C threshold in many parts of France. The number of home deaths also spiked by 40 per cent during that time.
But the minister of health also warned that heat-related illnesses can last long after the heatwave has ended, and that the mortality rate could rise.
“The extreme heat of the last few days is having a delayed effect, particularly on vulnerable people but also on some younger people, who sometimes turn up at A&E five to ten days after the heatwave,” Stephanie Rist said in an interview with La Tribune newspaper on Sunday.
“For people with chronic conditions, this effect can last for several weeks,” she added, saying she expected “the strain on the hospital system to continue even after temperatures have fallen”.
In Paris, emergency services responded to 3,400 calls – four times higher than average – and treated 30 cardiac arrests during a 24-hour period ending Friday.
In the department of Yvelines, west of Paris, the heatwave claimed the life of a 12-year-old girl who died of heatstroke on Friday, while her 15-year-old brother was saved by paramedics.
So far, 74 people seeking respite from the heat have also died by drowning in France, including a man who drowned in Paris’s Canal Saint-Martin while swimming outside the authorised swimming zone.
Throughout the week, desperate Parisians living in overheated apartments slept in public parks, turning green spaces such as the Buttes-Chaumont in the northeast into an open-air hotel, or booked hotel rooms with air conditioning, steps from their apartment.
While thunderstorms helped cool the French capital Sunday night, lightning strikes cut power to 36,000 households in Aisne, Yvelines and Indre-et-Loire.
In Paris, 1,300 households have also been without electricity for 30 hours after outages hit the south and eastern parts of the city Saturday, cutting power to lifts in high-rise apartments, fridges and fans.
“There’s still time to knock on your neighbour’s door if they’re isolated,” Ms Rist said Sunday. “Everyone must take responsibility.”
“As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, you bear a significant amount of responsibility for global warming and the consequences we, in France, are experiencing. Your cities, which are 90 per cent air conditioned, are not unrelated to this.”
Now blame China, it should be easy since the deputy mayor already went after the United States and the Chinese are mocking the French for their lack of air-conditioning.
More Europoors die from the heat than Americans die from guns, including suicides, every year. I can confidently declare that Europe is now a Turd World shit hole. Have a chart comparing Europoor cities and American cities:
“As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, you bear a significant amount of responsibility for global warming and the consequences we, in France, are experiencing. Your cities, which are 90 per cent air conditioned, are not unrelated to this.”
“Dear American journalists and social media ‘influencers’: for days, some of you have been criticising and making fun of Paris because the city does not have A/C in every room...OMG, this is so rich!” wrote Audrey Pulvar, deputy mayor of Paris for international relations, on social media.
“As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, you bear a significant amount of responsibility for global warming and the consequences we, in France, are experiencing. Your cities, which are 90 per cent air conditioned, are not unrelated to this.”
After listing Paris’s green initiatives, Ms Pulvar ended her posts by criticising the US for what she described as the country’s disdain for the planet. “So please, enough with the lecture. Just start doing your part. Best regards.”
Before we hate on the French too much, this woman isn't one of them:
This is her full post
Paris didn’t wait until June 2026 to reduce its environmental footprint and adapt to the consequences of climate change. Since the left took over the city government, we have consistently pursued ambitious public policies regarding ecological transition: greening the city, reducing car use, transforming mobility, making the Seine swimmable, improving the energy efficiency of buildings, eliminating pesticides, and supporting the ecological transition of agriculture that supplies Paris’s institutional food services. If we hadn’t done so, the situation today would be much worse. Yes, there is still much to be done. No, the situation is not ideal. But perhaps it would be more appropriate for one of the countries most responsible for the problem not to lecture those who are trying to find solutions for their own populations.
Imagine bragging about making farming less efficient and making the city more difficult to get around as if that's a good thing and has anything to do with staying cool. Also A/C doesn't emit PFAS.
A lot of people in the south/SW/SE all get a little faggy about 'lol yankees come to Disney or LA or anything else and then bitch about heat, you cant stand 75 degree room temps!'
Most people in the south arent actually blasting the AC because it does cost money, most people in the south grew up there or are naturalized to the heat or can stand it.
Most people in America also have ceiling fans, which is what people run to cover the AC not running, people dont really remark about it because AC works better. They also actually do build for the climate but there are a lot of ways of staying out of heat stroke that dont involve AC, you just have to be normalized to like 80-something degrees because thats what its going to be. They also use AC in all the other subtropical places (which the SE technically kind of is) its just Thailand and the Philippines arent as big as the US so nobody bitches.
