Europe’s Answer to Summer: More Restrictions
Summer is here again, and Europe is responding the only way it seems to know how: by restricting ordinary people.
As France swelters through temperatures above 104 degrees, more than 1,300 schools have closed, homes remain largely unequipped with air-conditioning, and officials have now cracked down on drinking alcohol in public.
The pattern is familiar. European leaders spend years discouraging the abundant, affordable energy and modern infrastructure that allow people to live comfortably through extreme weather. Then, when the predictable summer heat arrives, they impose new rules on citizens instead.
According to the Associated Press:
“In a country without widespread air-conditioning, people tried to adapt.”
That is not an adaptation strategy. It is a policy failure.
Air-conditioning, reliable electricity, and affordable energy give people the freedom to protect themselves and their families. But Europe’s political class would rather lecture citizens about climate change, constrain energy use, and regulate personal behavior than provide the power and infrastructure needed to make modern life comfortable.
Now even having a drink outside is treated as a problem for the government to solve.
The weather may be hot, but the real European tradition is unchanged: fewer comforts, higher costs, and more control.
June 22, 2026