I live in Strasbourg, France.

Doesn't France have extreme heat waves in summer?

The way temperatures have been changing in Europe in the past decade, you may not have A/C at home now, but I bet you'll have it in ten years, tops. So will everyone else and their dogs.

Yes we have pick heat waves. But that didn't make magically expand incomes that can be dropped in AC installation and operational costs.

As I said, in building that are attached to money incomes, be it hostels, shops or restaurants, it's of course something that can balanced within loses and profits. In a personal home, it will be just eat some of your budget.

And with electricity price on the rise (and thus basically everything in common goods) and salary stagnation on the other hand, I doubt people here will suddenly rush on AC on massive scales. Plus government apparently are pushing to alternative approach, but I'm just discovering that as this thread launched me on the track to investigate the topic.

Personally, I doubt I'll jump to some AC anytime soon. It's just out of reach for my incomes, all the more when there is no basically no chance to see the electricity price plummet while my salary has good chances to continue to stay freezed as it's been for the two last years. And it's not like I feel the most unlucky person in the town, to be clear, my situation is far from the worst ones I can witness around me.

Where I live (Poland), A/C is expensive too, though it's been dropping in price. Portable heat pumps are becoming cheap enough to consider. Fixed installations are doable even in individual flats (obviously cheapest when during general renovation, and boring extra holes in walls isn't a big deal). The last few years made people switch from thinking about A/C as a luxury for the rich, and start thinking about maybe getting it some day. And our heat waves were quite light compared to the rest of Europe.

most people in Western Europe don't have A/C, houses are way better insulated for short-term heatwaves and people usually don't mind indoor temperatures of up to 80-84F/26-28C. If you add the general hate French (and I think German?) people have for drafts and air currents in general and you can see how people just deal with the heat in the summer.

Not to mention central A/C in the North American sense with a air handler & ducts is just never coming to France, it's such an outdated technology and forced-air heating is generally considered to suck there.

Hmm. Two years ago I was at the Louvre in May. I know Paris is very proud it doesn’t use AC but only “chilled” water from the Seine. Well with thousands of bodies, it was HOT. I was dripping wet from sweat and I was not the only one. I read that 15k people died in France during the 2003 heatwave. I find the slow adoption of AC disappointing as I am usually a Francophile. https://www.france24.com/en/environment/20230717-parisians-a...

I understand the Olympic Village had the same system and many teams brought their own portable AC units. https://apnews.com/article/olympics-air-conditioning-paris-0...

Most people who died in 2003 as a consequence of the heat where old people who laked enough care and dedicated resources. Lake of AC was maybe not a helper here, but there is more at play than just that.

That population is the most vulnerable, and indicative of the issue. The heat indeed killed them, but the availability/affordability of AC could have saved lives.

Interesting, thank you.

I suppose that you do have heating in the home?

Yes, actually we finally found a house that was affordable for us last year, and made lot work in it, including wall isolation, changing windows, and install a heat pump, replacing the oil-for hearing system that was in place. Heat pumps are clearly on the rise around here, contrary to AC. There is of course no magic regarding electricity price here, but oil provision and prices are also big unknowns, all the more with the state pushing oil-fire systems out of market as a legal option.

Forced-air heating basically does not exist in France :). To be fair, radient heating is always a nicer experience.