French populist leader Marine Le Pen has vowed to put in place a “massive air-conditioning plan” using interest-free loans intended for the “green” transition to mitigate the impact of future heat waves like those the country is currently experiencing.
This week, temperatures throughout Europe soared, causing massive disruptions in nations like France, where the use of air conditioners has long been a cultural taboo due to a mix of environmentalism and superstitions about their impact on health. However, amid the current deadly heat wave, some are being forced to reckon with the fact that AC has become a prerequisite for modernity.
Even Marine Tondelier, the leader of the green-minded Ecologist Party, admitted this week that “there are places where we can no longer do without air conditioning”. In a stunning statement for a green politician, Tondelier argued that the “taboo” about air conditioning should be lifted in France.
Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally party has seized on the issue, arguing that the lack of air conditioning disproportionately affects the working class, who have to live in the heat, miss work when schools close, and watch after their children during the day. Meanwhile, the wealthy largely live and work in air-conditioned environments.
A customer with a newly-purchased cooling fan outside a store selling electric fans during high temperatures in central Toulouse, France, on Wednesday, June 24, 2026. Photographer: Matthieu Rondel/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Le Pen’s party has said that, if given power, it will use the zero-interest loan schemes already in place for Green agenda projects to finance up to 20 billion euros’ worth of investment in air conditioning installations across the country. According to National Rally MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy, this would amount to between 30 and 40 million air conditioners installed across France.
Tanguy said the scheme would likely pay for itself over time, noting that France currently loses “between 0.3 and 0.5 points of GDP” each year due to its lack of AC adoption.
However, not everyone is on board, with the leader of the far-left La France Insoumise party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, accusing Le Pen of “knowing nothing”, while claiming that “air conditioning everywhere means increasing the damage” to the climate.
The Macronist liberal camp has also long opposed installing more air conditioners, claiming they would worsen the urban heat island effect on streets, even if they cooled the interiors of buildings.
National Rally president Jordan Bardella said that France was stuck in the “stone age”, saying: “All around the world, countries facing extreme heat have adapted. In France, some are telling us that we should just accept choking for air. A surreal debate!”
“Let’s defend an ecology of progress, science, and innovation… And air conditioning,” Bardella argued.
“Promoting nuclear energy, a low-carbon energy source, implementing a major public building air-conditioning plan, such as for schools, and working toward relocalisation through economic patriotism are the only paths to both reduce France’s carbon footprint and make living conditions more livable for millions of French people,” he added.
TOPSHOT – People jump in the Trocadero Fountain near the Eiffel Tower during a heatwave in Paris on June 22, 2026. Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP via Getty Images)
While some have been able to escape the heat by cooling down in the canals and rivers of Paris, the heat wave has proved fatal for some, with upwards of 40 people drowning so far since last week.
The French Ministry of Health said that there had been 25 cardiac arrests on Wednesday in Paris. This was over double the figure seen in the French capital city on average. The ministry also said that it had seen a “four-fold increase in visits to the emergency room due to the heat.”
Le Pen remarked, “It is shameful that babies born in hospitals, the sick, and the elderly are forced to endure such heat waves because they refuse to install air conditioning. These heat waves kill; we must implement a major climate plan!”
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