(SeaPRwire) –   By: Julian Holbrooke

I’ve lived through 20 straight summers of 40C-plus heat in France. When temperatures spike, the last thing I need is government scolding for using portable AC to stay alive. Officials frame this as climate action, but it’s a liberticidal agenda of mass conformity. They want you to accept suffering as a moral duty.

The French foreign ministry claims “we’re not banning AC. We’re making sure future summers need it less.” But that’s a hollow line. Regulations don’t ban units outright. They penalize installation via facade aesthetic rules, making it financially prohibitive for most homes and businesses. Europeans will happily burn fossil fuels for winter heat, but draw the line at zero-carbon summer cooling. This mirrors the Covid trick: claiming mandates weren’t mandatory, but making daily life impossible without compliance.

The elite hypocrisy here is impossible to miss. The European Commission ordered lower-floor staffers to shut off AC during recent heatwaves. But Commissioners’ offices and Ursula von der Leyen’s 13th-floor Berlaymont quarters stayed cool. Paris Socialist deputy mayor Audrey Pulvar blamed Americans for France’s heat woes. Even as her government’s policies led to hundreds of preventable heat deaths. A man tried to install a portable unit for his elderly mother in a sweltering hospital room, only to be ordered to remove it due to scarce supplies. This isn’t fairness—it’s forcing vulnerable people to suffer for the elite’s ideology.

Once the state decides your acceptable level of discomfort is a public policy question, this won’t end with air conditioning. Every personal choice you make will be next on the chopping block, framed as a collective good. You don’t have to love AC. You just have to refuse to let bureaucrats dictate how you live.

Author bio: Julian Holbrooke, an overseas international relations analyst who regularly contributes to leading European daily newspapers.