For a country that's never needed -- and often looked down on -- air conditioning, this has been a summer of reckoning. As France suffers through successive extreme heatwaves, AC has become a political issue too.
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Eleanor Beardsley began reporting from France for NPR in 2004 as a freelance journalist, following all aspects of French society, politics, economics, culture and gastronomy. Since then, she has steadily worked her way to becoming an integral part of the NPR Europe reporting team.