Unsurprisingly, air conditioning has become a huge political issue in France. Anyone who has lived in France, as I did in Lyons for a brief period, will know there is still tremendous disdain for air conditioning among the French. I often heard it dismissed as an unhealthy American invention.

French people have an armoury of tactics to deal with heat – everything from the more recent tactic of pinning shiny emergency blankets to windows to reflect heat outwards, to the tradition of sealing windows and doors tight during the day and airing out at night. None of these remedies can cope with temperatures that led hospitals to reserve refrigerated lorries in anticipation of mortuaries being unable to cope with the excess deaths.

Naomi O’Leary’s reporting from France last week described a society grinding to a halt in unrelenting heat.

Marine Le Pen, president of the far-right National Rally (RN) – who is awaiting the results next week of an appeal against a five-year ban on seeking election after an embezzlement scandal – has declared RN to be the “party of air conditioning”. Predictably, her embrace of air conditioning has enraged the far-left presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who accused RN of ignoring the dangers of increasing emissions.

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