I’ve lived in France for 40 years. It was hot last year, but this year is off the charts, and they expect things to get even worse.
I grew up in California’s Sacramento Valley, where summer heat was simply a fact of life. For years, whenever people in Provence complained about the heat, I would say, “No, this isn’t hot. Sacramento Valley is hot.”
Last year, and especially this year, the conversation has changed. The first thing people ask each other now is, “Do you have air-conditioning?” Most of us just shake our heads. Why would we? Until recently, it was rarely needed.
Installing air-conditioning – Outdoor units often can’t be placed on buildings because of historic preservation and or regulations, and in many apartment buildings there is simply no practical way to vent the system. or in our case we have 3 feet thick plus stone walls, actually hard to vent them.
What makes the heat especially difficult is that life in France is very different from life in the USA. If your home isn’t air-conditioned, there’s usually no cool refuge. Many people don’t have garages. You walk to your car, and parking is often limited, so you may have to park far from where you’re going. The Metro and the buses are not air-conditioned either. The places you visit frequently might not be air-conditioned. In small towns, most daily activities are done on foot, not by driving from one air-conditioned space to another.
When you live in a climate that is hot, such as Arizona or parts of California the infrastructure is designed around the heat. You moved from one air-conditioned space to another. Here, even when temperatures reach the same extremes, life is different. People walk, shop, meet friends, and go about their daily lives outdoors. but without the infrastructure to keep cool the heat is ruthless.
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