The Heat Killed a Thousand People
Last week, a thousand people in France died from the heat.
From Wednesday, June 25 to Friday, June 27, over three days, the excess deaths across France were over a thousand more than usual. According to the public health agency, daily deaths exceeded 1,200 on the 25th and surpassed 1,400 on each of the following two days. Normally, daily deaths in France range from 900 to 1,000. Eighty-five percent of the deceased were aged 65 or older. The increase was greatest in the most extreme red alert areas. Temperatures in France exceeded 42 degrees Celsius, the Czech Republic set a new record at 41.9 degrees, and Germany broke its own national high temperatures for three consecutive days. The World Weather Attribution group analyzed that this heatwave would have been impossible without climate change and was effectively unthinkable 50 years ago.
A few days ago, a comrade asked me what I thought of the mockery on Korean internet that France, having stigmatized air conditioning for environmental reasons, was now hoarding it when it got hot. At the time, I replied that the mockery was superficial. Who can and cannot afford an air conditioner is a class issue, and environmental discourse has effectively functioned as a tool to limit the working class's right to cooling. Now the weight of that conversation has changed. The French people who were the target of mockery have actually died. At the very moment some were laughing in YouTube comments saying "serves them right," elderly people living alone in the suburbs of Paris were being found dead on their floors, enduring 40-degree heat without even a fan.
The class character of these deaths is clear. The deceased are overwhelmingly elderly. The elderly have lower incomes, poorer housing conditions, and higher social isolation. French health authorities noted a sharp increase in deaths at home, which means that the most vulnerable among the elderly—those living at home rather than in care facilities, i.e., poor elderly people—suffered the greatest impact. WHO Director-General Tedros warned that Europe's homes, workplaces, and schools were not built for such temperatures, but the extent to which they were "not built" varies by class. A Haussmann-style apartment in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and a low-rise public housing unit in Bagnolet offer completely different thermal environments in the same city, under the same heat. Insulation, shading, ventilation, and the presence or absence of air conditioning—these are class indicators.
Delving deeper, the fact that France's air conditioning penetration rate remains at the European average of 20 percent is the result of decades of accumulated political choices. The environmental movement and some leftist groups have branded air conditioning as a major source of carbon emissions, while architectural aesthetics discourse has opposed installing outdoor units on the grounds that they mar the appearance of stone buildings. What these discourses missed is a simple fact: those who can forgo air conditioning are those who have the means to escape the heat. Those who can retreat to a country house, those who live in spacious, well-shaded homes, those who are professionals who can adjust their working hours. The people truly exposed to the heat are those without these options. When environmental discourse does not consider the immediate survival conditions of the working class, it can, regardless of its intentions, expose the most vulnerable to danger. That is not a failure of environmentalism's intent but a consequence of its class blind spot.
However, treating air conditioning as simply a matter of individual purchase is also not a solution. Reports that air conditioner sales have surged in France are merely a market response, not a solution. Those who can buy an air conditioner buy one; those who cannot, die. That is the market's cooling policy. The real alternative is to make cooling part of public infrastructure. District-level cooling and heating networks, permanent cooling shelters in public buildings, public projects to improve insulation in elderly housing, and temporary exemptions from electricity bills when heat warnings are issued. These measures do not generate profit, so if left to the market, they will never be implemented.
South Korea is in no position to mock France on this issue. South Korea's air conditioning penetration rate is high, but that has been solved by individual household purchases, not by social measures. The elderly living alone, those in rooftop rooms and semi-basements, and basic livelihood security recipients who worry about cooling costs—they are not in a better condition than their French counterparts. Even when they have air conditioners, there are elderly people in Korea who cannot turn them on due to electricity bills. What happened in France last week is not a tragedy in a faraway land but a preview of the scenario that upcoming heatwaves will reproduce in Korea.
The climate crisis is not an external condition for class struggle but a new terrain of class struggle itself. Who can avoid the heat and who dies from it—this question is no longer a secondary consideration of environmental policy but the core of political economy. France's one thousand deaths were capital's answer to that question.
From Wednesday, June 25 to Friday, June 27, over three days, the excess deaths across France were over a thousand more than usual. According to the public health agency, daily deaths exceeded 1,200 on the 25th and surpassed 1,400 on each of the following two days. Normally, daily deaths in France range from 900 to 1,000. Eighty-five percent of the deceased were aged 65 or older. The increase was greatest in the most extreme red alert areas. Temperatures in France exceeded 42 degrees Celsius, the Czech Republic set a new record at 41.9 degrees, and Germany broke its own national high temperatures for three consecutive days. The World Weather Attribution group analyzed that this heatwave would have been impossible without climate change and was effectively unthinkable 50 years ago.
A few days ago, a comrade asked me what I thought of the mockery on Korean internet that France, having stigmatized air conditioning for environmental reasons, was now hoarding it when it got hot. At the time, I replied that the mockery was superficial. Who can and cannot afford an air conditioner is a class issue, and environmental discourse has effectively functioned as a tool to limit the working class's right to cooling. Now the weight of that conversation has changed. The French people who were the target of mockery have actually died. At the very moment some were laughing in YouTube comments saying "serves them right," elderly people living alone in the suburbs of Paris were being found dead on their floors, enduring 40-degree heat without even a fan.
The class character of these deaths is clear. The deceased are overwhelmingly elderly. The elderly have lower incomes, poorer housing conditions, and higher social isolation. French health authorities noted a sharp increase in deaths at home, which means that the most vulnerable among the elderly—those living at home rather than in care facilities, i.e., poor elderly people—suffered the greatest impact. WHO Director-General Tedros warned that Europe's homes, workplaces, and schools were not built for such temperatures, but the extent to which they were "not built" varies by class. A Haussmann-style apartment in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and a low-rise public housing unit in Bagnolet offer completely different thermal environments in the same city, under the same heat. Insulation, shading, ventilation, and the presence or absence of air conditioning—these are class indicators.
Delving deeper, the fact that France's air conditioning penetration rate remains at the European average of 20 percent is the result of decades of accumulated political choices. The environmental movement and some leftist groups have branded air conditioning as a major source of carbon emissions, while architectural aesthetics discourse has opposed installing outdoor units on the grounds that they mar the appearance of stone buildings. What these discourses missed is a simple fact: those who can forgo air conditioning are those who have the means to escape the heat. Those who can retreat to a country house, those who live in spacious, well-shaded homes, those who are professionals who can adjust their working hours. The people truly exposed to the heat are those without these options. When environmental discourse does not consider the immediate survival conditions of the working class, it can, regardless of its intentions, expose the most vulnerable to danger. That is not a failure of environmentalism's intent but a consequence of its class blind spot.
However, treating air conditioning as simply a matter of individual purchase is also not a solution. Reports that air conditioner sales have surged in France are merely a market response, not a solution. Those who can buy an air conditioner buy one; those who cannot, die. That is the market's cooling policy. The real alternative is to make cooling part of public infrastructure. District-level cooling and heating networks, permanent cooling shelters in public buildings, public projects to improve insulation in elderly housing, and temporary exemptions from electricity bills when heat warnings are issued. These measures do not generate profit, so if left to the market, they will never be implemented.
South Korea is in no position to mock France on this issue. South Korea's air conditioning penetration rate is high, but that has been solved by individual household purchases, not by social measures. The elderly living alone, those in rooftop rooms and semi-basements, and basic livelihood security recipients who worry about cooling costs—they are not in a better condition than their French counterparts. Even when they have air conditioners, there are elderly people in Korea who cannot turn them on due to electricity bills. What happened in France last week is not a tragedy in a faraway land but a preview of the scenario that upcoming heatwaves will reproduce in Korea.
The climate crisis is not an external condition for class struggle but a new terrain of class struggle itself. Who can avoid the heat and who dies from it—this question is no longer a secondary consideration of environmental policy but the core of political economy. France's one thousand deaths were capital's answer to that question.