It's your fault as an American that over 1000 people died from heat in Paris last week

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A Paris official has said she holds the US partially responsible for the record-breaking heatwave in France.
The comments were made as part of a scathing rebuke to American tourists, immigrants and expats who have been criticising France for its lack of air conditioning across the country.

Over the past week, the transatlantic discourse online has also been heating up, with some Americans – many living in desert and tropical climes in the southern US – mocking the French and Western Europeans for not being able to withstand temperatures to which they are accustomed to every year.

“Dear American journalists and social media ‘influencers’: for days, some of you have been criticising and making fun of Paris because the city does not have A/C in every room...OMG, this is so rich!” wrote Audrey Pulvar, deputy mayor of Paris for international relations, on social media.
“As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, you bear a significant amount of responsibility for global warming and the consequences we, in France, are experiencing. Your cities, which are 90 per cent air conditioned, are not unrelated to this.”

After listing Paris’s green initiatives, Ms Pulvar ended her posts by criticising the US for what she described as the country’s disdain for the planet. “So please, enough with the lecture. Just start doing your part. Best regards.”

Unlike the US, where air conditioning is common, in France only one in four households has air conditioning. Historically, the French have been sceptical about air conditioning: an Ipsos survey published earlier this month found that 78 per cent of French people believe that it’s bad for the environment and one in six respondents said they would rather suffer for the sake of the planet.

But last week’s record-breaking temperatures have shown that attitudes have shifted, with retailers across the country selling out of portable air conditioning units and videos capturing shoppers forming long queues and tearing at pallets holding units freshly offloaded from delivery trucks.

Preliminary mortality figures released Sunday by Public Health France show that the country has registered 1,000 more deaths than previous months since the peak of the heatwave on Wednesday, when temperatures edged past the 40C threshold in many parts of France. The number of home deaths also spiked by 40 per cent during that time.

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In Paris, emergency services responded to 3,400 calls – four times higher than average – and treated 30 cardiac arrests during a 24-hour period ending Friday.

In the department of Yvelines, west of Paris, the heatwave claimed the life of a 12-year-old girl who died of heatstroke on Friday, while her 15-year-old brother was saved by paramedics.

So far, 74 people seeking respite from the heat have also died by drowning in France, including a man who drowned in Paris’s Canal Saint-Martin while swimming outside the authorised swimming zone.

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