Air Conditioning (or lack thereof) in France

A cross cultural comparison

It was very hot in Lyon the week before I left, and it has been very hot in Saint Cloud for the ten days that I’ve been back.  But the experience of living with very hot temperatures between France and Minnesota is very different.

The French are wary of air conditioning.  They have a deep-seated cultural belief that too much air conditioning will make you sick. 

I already knew about the concept of “thermal shock” – basically, the French believe that having more than a 7 degree C difference (13°F) between the outside temperature and the air conditioned environment can cause loss of consciousness and even a heart attack; many websites suggest that thermal shock is to be expected (not just possible) if the temperature difference reaches 10 degrees C (18°F).  I found one website helpfully informing workers that their employer is required to provide refrigerated water when the outside temperature is 40°C (104° F) or more, since the inside environment will still be at a temperature above 32°C (90° F). 

But it turns out that thermal shock is only the beginning.  Christian told me in a very matter of fact way that air conditioning that blows toward your head or neck can cause a sudden and long lasting stiffening, painful neck cramps, and headaches; many people recommend wearing a scarf if you are exposed to air conditioning drafts at work.  Air conditioning is also reported to dry out the air, which is true: this is partly why air conditioning makes us feel much cooler.  It removes humidity from the air, allowing us to cool our bodies naturally (through sweat evaporation) more easily.  But the French believe that this drying of the air can dry out our mucous membranes, increasing the likelihood of colds, and dry our eyes, increasing the likelihood of conjunctivitis.

Finally, since air conditioning recirculates air rather than bringing in fresh air from outside, there are many articles on French websites explaining the dangers of catching other illnesses (including Legionnaire’s disease) from the buildup of dangerous bacteria in the air.  I suddenly have a new understanding of why so many French people I know insist that it’s important to aérer la maison (air out the residence) at least once a day, usually in the morning.  Since I first really started living in France during the Covid pandemic, I thought that this mandatory airing each day was a Covid related behavior, but no – it’s a deep-seated cultural habit that was already well established. 

French websites are full of advice for strategies to avoid using air conditioning at all: keep your windows and shutters closed during the day, and open them at night and/or in the morning to let the fresh air in; avoid using the oven or other electronic devices that can heat rooms; drink a lot of water; use a fan, especially one with misting capabilities.  But many French people don’t like fans either.  Christian has slowly overcome his certainty that using a fan at night (which for me is a necessary mosquito deterrent) will give him a cold or an ear infection.

When I explained the “no more than 13 degrees cooler” rule to one of my daughters, she immediately asked, “Haven’t French people heard of Arizona?  What do they expect when it’s 115 outside (46°C), that people set their air conditioners to 102 (39°C)?”  Good question, and the answer is possibly yes. 

What really matters for dangerous levels of heat is the wet bulb temperature, a measure that takes into account both heat and humidity, and becomes dangerous for human survival as it approaches 90°F or 32°C.  (See here for a good explainer on wet bulb temperatures.)  An Arizona indoor temperature of 102 degrees with 15% humidity translates to a wet bulb temperature of 68°F, well within the safe range.  At night, even with the recent record-breaking Phoenix overnight lows of 90°F, setting the air conditioning to 77 would be very close to the 75 where I have mine set on humid Minnesota nights like last night, when the low was 74 with a relative humidity of 93%, resulting in a wet bulb temperature of 72°F, higher than those usually experienced in Arizona.

Anyway, back to France.  Christian did install a single air conditioning unit in the living room of our apartment two years ago.  He’s in his late 50s, and this is the first time in his life that he’s had air conditioning at home.  It’s a mini split, one that could also be used for heating should we ever need it.  We don’t use it much, even in August. I don’t have a picture of it, but you can see it behind us in this photo we took on our fourth wedding anniversary.

I’ve been reading lately about how our bodies can adapt to heat, and even to working in the heat (up to a certain point) if we let them.  I saw it happening for me in July this year, when I came back to Lyon after three weeks in the much colder climates of Ireland and England.  (Ireland stories and photos coming soon.)

In the first few days, I felt hot enough that turning on the AC was necessary when the temperature in the apartment reached 24°C/75°F – and since I am home much more often than Christian in the afternoons, I was the one making that decision.  After ten days, I noticed that I didn’t really start to feel hot until the apartment was at 26°C/79°F.  By August, I had stabilized where Christian already was: we don’t turn on the air conditioning until it’s 29°C/84°F in the apartment – and then we set it at 26°C/79°F .  By the time it gets to that temperature, I’m ready to turn it off; otherwise, if we have guests or if Christian and his son still want it on, I have to put on a light sweater.  Even on the hottest days, we never have it on for more than a few hours.

I recently learned that setting the air conditioning no lower than 26°C/79°F is the law in France: not for individual residences, but for most public spaces.  Since 2007, the government has mandated this minimum temperature in offices, factories, stores, restaurants, and public transport. 

Maybe because they are used to this policy, French people really do prefer life with little to no air conditioning.  The evening that I returned from my three weeks in the British Isles, I had to go directly from the airport to meet my French family at a café in our neighborhood.  It was a hot and steamy July evening, and I was thankful for the air conditioning (set to about 81 degrees) in the restaurant.  I was shocked to discover that we, the people who had chosen air conditioning, were a tiny minority: we were six of a total of twenty people inside the restaurant, while more than 200 people were outside at tables on the extensive terrace.  Even more shocking, there was a line for the tables outside, despite plenty of available inside seating.  

At night in the apartment, we open the large glass doors to the balcony in the living room and the bedrooms; in the bedroom, we have the shutter halfway closed, hoping to deter some of the mosquitoes.  There are no screens – this is a nearly universal European thing that is very frustrating for me.  Even with the courant d’air (air current) that the French love so much flowing through the apartment all night, the temperature doesn’t dip below 76.

Having adapted to an indoor temperature of 79°F/26°C degrees that now feels “cool” to me, I can understand the French optimism that their eco-friendly Olympic village would be suitable for the athletes.  It was designed with innovative ground source water cooling so that the indoor spaces would never surpass 79°F/26°C – assuming that everyone closed their shutters during the day as directed, which was a huge assumption.  But I can also just as easily understand why the American athletes, coming from the US, found the same 79°F/26°C unbearably hot.

The first thing I noticed coming back to the US a week ago was how freezing cold indoor spaces are, starting with the airport.  I had to wait 25 minutes after collecting my baggage to be picked up, and I waited outside: I really didn’t want to breathe in the exhaust fumes of all the cars passing by, but I could not stay inside the airport.  It felt like being inside a huge produce refrigerator, like that massive refrigerated room at Costco that I try not to enter. 

The next morning I went to my local Coborn’s grocery store and as soon as I stepped inside I reacted exactly the same way that I do on winter mornings when it’s 20 below zero: a gasp of surprise, a muttered “Fuck it’s cold!,” and hastening my steps to get out of there as quickly as possible.  Outside temperatures were in the 80s F/high 20s C with very high humidity, so I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt – not the winter down jacket that I suddenly wished I had.

I wore long pants and a fall jacket later that afternoon at our faculty workshop on campus, but I was still shivering in the aggressively air conditioned rooms.  I almost started believing in thermal shock. My colleague who had also just returned from a summer in Europe was also shivering.

I realized that this phenomenon of overly aggressive (for me) air conditioning in the US is why I wear dresses 3 to 5 times per week in France in the summer, but almost never in Minnesota.  Restaurants, stores, and businesses in France are very rarely cold enough that I notice, even wearing a sleeveless summer dress. 

Here I am pouring champagne on my birthday in June, and on vacation in the Vosges in August. I’m also wearing a dress in our anniversary photo above.

Last week at the dentist’s office in Minnesota, I had to ask for a blanket.  I had tried to prepare: I wore jeans and a thick flannel shirt over my t-shirt, but it was not enough. 

This week when I had to go back, I put on jeans, thick winter wool socks, a long-sleeved turtleneck, and a fleece lined jacket.  And I still had to ask for the blanket.

Rome is significantly warmer than Lyon, and air conditioning is too expensive for even the stores that have it to use it very strongly.  In Rome, I wore dresses 5 to 7 days a week all the way until mid-October.  In my apartment, where there was air conditioning but no way to use it (they had removed the remote controls), I followed all of the French advice: open the windows at night, use a fan, keep the shutters and windows tightly closed during the day.  Drink cold water from the refrigerator, and if you’re really hot, take a cold shower.  It was really not a problem.

Maybe I’m more able to adapt to these kinds of conditions because there were so many times in my life when I had to.  We never had air conditioning when I was growing up, except for the six months that we lived with my grandparents when I was 14.  We used fans, and I invented a system for wetting a t-shirt and putting it in the freezer for a half hour before putting it on at bedtime.  I spent a steamy summer in North Carolina without air conditioning, and four summers in Lexington, Kentucky, including one where I was hugely pregnant. I kept cool by eating a half a watermelon per day in the form of cold chunks from the refrigerator. 

I prefer the French method.  Then again, there are times when the humid summer days get to me in Minnesota and I would really love a cool blast of air conditioning.  Most recently this happened at the State Fair, which will be the subject of my next post. 

This post has far fewer photos than normal, but it will be balanced out by many photos from the Fair.