Problematic Europe: "10 Million Won Just for Installation" — Why Air Conditioners Are a Luxury in Paris

00:00 Intro
00:35 Why Paris cannot install air conditioners immediately
03:11 10 million won to install a single air conditioner
06:13 Air conditioners without outdoor units are sold out, leading to brawls
07:40 Air conditioner installation sparks political division

This is Paris. Today, I will talk about air conditioning. France is experiencing its worst heatwave this summer. It has already gone through the hottest June in history.

[Tania Casareggio/Tourist: I try to drink plenty of water, but there is no water even when I go to the shops. It is just too hot.]

For the first time in my life, I have experienced temperatures of 42 or 43 degrees Celsius (108-109 degrees Fahrenheit) here. It is not a Middle Eastern desert or Africa; this was the temperature in Paris. They say it is hot today as well, fluctuating between 36 and 37 degrees Celsius (97-99 degrees Fahrenheit). However, there is no air conditioning here.

1. Why Paris cannot install air conditioners immediately
In Paris, even if you want to install an air conditioner, you cannot. Most people are just getting by with electric fans. Because it is so hot, the city of Paris opened three public swimming pools in the Seine River. I visited one, and even an hour before closing time, people were waiting in lines dozens of meters long to get in. Even though the water quality of the Seine pools is always a concern, people were doing this because it is much cooler than their homes, which lack air conditioning.

[Elias/Paris Resident: I have a fan at home, but even when it blows, it is weak and actually blows hot air. So, it is not very helpful for cooling down the heat.]

Setting aside homes, it was common for hospitals to lack air conditioning, leaving mothers and newborns to endure 40-degree Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) heat with their own bodies. I could not understand why there is no air conditioning or why it cannot be installed. So, I looked into it. The structure is difficult for us to understand. First, you must obtain permission from the city hall to install an air conditioner. You do not just submit an application and get approval; you must prove that the outdoor unit on the exterior of the building will not damage the building's aesthetics by submitting structural diagrams, site photos, and installation plans. You must submit exactly where, at what height, and how it will be installed. If the house is near a cultural heritage site, the review process becomes even more rigorous. Even if you are denied, you can try a second or third time. The problem is what comes next. After getting city hall approval, you must obtain the consent of the residents in your apartment building. It is not even one-third; you need consent from more than half. And this is a one-strike-out process. Furthermore, it takes at least two to three months because it requires procedures like a general meeting of residents. Even if you experience a 40-degree Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) heatwave last month and decide, "This is impossible, let's install an air conditioner!", this summer is already lost. You have to prepare from now for next summer. That is why some people take the risk, skip resident consent, and install them without permission. They thought it was better to be forced to remove it later than to be rejected.

[Philippe/Paris Resident: Neighbors can just object for no reason. If that happens, you cannot do anything. So, I chose not to ask.]

2. 10 million won to install a single air conditioner
However, those who were lucky enough to prepare since last year or early this year and managed to get consent face another frustration: the installation cost. Most buildings in Paris are over 100 years old. Even if they are newly built, they are 40 or 50 years old. There are no air conditioning pipes. If you drill through walls to insert pipes, follow the installation standards for outdoor units, and work according to the slow construction schedule, the cost easily exceeds 10 million won. It costs 10 million won to install just one air conditioner. And that is not for a large standing unit like the ones in our living rooms. Those cannot even pass noise standards because the outdoor unit is too large. That is just the installation cost for a wall-mounted air conditioner for a room. The problem is that most installation companies are already fully booked for this summer. Construction is only possible starting in October. Now, if you have gone through the permits and consent, overcome the financial burden, and installed the air conditioner, it would be a huge mistake to think, "Now I can just live while enjoying the cool breeze." There is one final hurdle: the actual noise standard for air conditioners. According to the French Public Health Code, if the noise added by the installation of an outdoor unit exceeds a certain standard, removal can be demanded. And what is that standard? 5 decibels during the day and 3 decibels at night. I asked an AI how loud 5 decibels is. It replied, "It is a sound smaller than the rustling of leaves on a very quiet night sky." Human breathing is said to be 10 decibels. That says it all. Of course, the standard is slightly different because it is the noise added to existing ambient noise. Still, the criteria for noise are that strict. Therefore, there are many cases in France where outdoor unit noise led to lawsuits from neighbors, resulting in forced removal. There are even cases where compensation was paid for mental distress caused by noise. Given this situation, it is difficult to install air conditioners with outdoor units in France. The current air conditioner penetration rate is said to be around 25%, but this is a figure for all of France. It includes the hot southern Mediterranean regions. So, in Paris, the actual feeling is likely less than 10%. Why is air conditioner installation so difficult? There is a reason. Originally, Paris was not hot. In terms of latitude, it is further north than North Korea. Moreover, the summer is dry, so even if the temperature occasionally exceeded 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), it was bearable in the shade. That is why people could live without air conditioning at home. But now that the temperature has started to exceed human body temperature and go over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), even the shade is useless. The air conditioning regulations that were not a problem before are now becoming a major issue.

3. Air conditioners without outdoor units are sold out, leading to brawls
That is why air conditioners without outdoor units, which are not subject to these regulations, are popular. Since there is no outdoor unit, there is no need for city hall permission or drilling through walls. You can turn it on as soon as you buy it, but the problem is that they are completely sold out. You cannot buy them even if you want to. There are no products on Amazon that can be delivered within a month. Offline stores have been empty since last month. I went to a store to buy one because it was so hot. I went last month, and the staff jokingly said that it would be much faster to go to Korea and buy one than to wait. I am kicking myself for not buying one in advance. The price is now two or three times higher than it was two months ago, but you still cannot buy one. A while ago, a large supermarket released portable air conditioners at the original price, which is half the current price. Lines stretched out from dawn. And as soon as they opened the doors, it was chaos. It was truly a battlefield, with people pushing, tearing, and hitting. There were even cases where a man used his strength to pull an air conditioner away from a weaker woman. It was a mess over something as simple as a fan, let alone an air conditioner.

[Aziz/Merchant near a large supermarket: It was really like a battlefield. It was chaos. Mothers were collapsing among the people fighting, people were pushing each other, and fathers were hitting. I had never seen such a scene in my life.]

Because of this, people cannot help but be angry about the cooling facilities.

4. Air conditioner installation sparks political division
In the end, the opposition party even filed a motion of no confidence in the government, citing its failure to prepare for the heatwave. Of course, it was rejected on the 6th, but it shows how angry people are. Setting aside homes, there is a strong voice calling for a change in the law to make it easier to install air conditioners in essential public facilities like hospitals and schools. However, this has strangely become a political issue; the right wing argues for actively installing air conditioners, while the left wing argues that we should consider the environment and think about it in the medium to long term. In fact, there are not a few people in Paris who genuinely think about and worry about the environment. Therefore, opinions are not converging toward air conditioner installation as quickly as one might think. In any case, the law needs to be changed, but this summer is already lost. We will have to wait and see if it can be changed by next summer or if French tradition will remain as it is.

Reported by Kwon Yeongin | Produced by Shin Hee-sook | Video by Kim Si-nae | Video Editing by Jang Yu-jin | Graphics by Yook Do-hyun | Source: X(@europa, @inst_Actu, @french_report78) | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.