French scramble to find air-conditioners before next heatwave

PARIS – Hundreds of people were besieging Lidl supermarkets in and around Paris on July 2, with scuffles and shouting matches breaking out as residents scrambled to get their hands on bargain air-cooling units before the next heatwave hits the French capital.

With few air-conditioners on sale elsewhere for less than €1,200 (S$1,800), the police were called to at least two stores as huge crowds descended on Lidl supermarkets to get their hands on basic models selling as low as €179.

Mousa Traore, who had been waiting for more than an hour along with about 200 other customers at a small Lidl store in a northern Paris neighbourhood, said he had been told there were only two units on sale.

“But then the police came, and we were told there were none. The police officers took them, I think,” he said, laughing.

France has just been through a record heatwave that led to excess deaths, overwhelmed hospitals, closed schools and cancelled music festivals, and weather services are forecasting another round of hot weather over the weekend.

Due to historically mild summers, few homes and schools in France are equipped with air-conditioning, making them ill-equipped to face increasingly frequent heatwaves that scientists say are linked to global warming.

Air-conditioning has emerged as a political weather vane in France, with the main far-right opposition party criticising the government for not having prepared for hotter weather and ecologists warning of the heavy energy demands of running air-conditioners.

Even so, while the crowd at the Lidl store was mostly good-humoured, some disputes broke out as people tried to jump the queue.

“I am not opening the store unless you leave,” a manager shouted as customers harangued her, with another staff member telling AFP that only two air-conditioners had been delivered. He refused to say if they had already been sold.

Hundreds more descended on a supermarket in Sevran, with cars queuing for the store blocking the centre of the poor northern suburb. It was a similar story in the nearby suburb of Livry-Gargan.

“I give up; it’s madness. I abandoned my car several streets away to get there on foot, but there is already a huge queue of people in the carpark. It’s impossible,” a local called Lolo told AFP. AFP