Living in the south of France outside tourist havens (I had one when renting near St-Tropez), the current situation is that serious AC is considered something for the rich.

Not because AC itself is particularly expensive, but because almost no rental apartment has it because installing AC during the construction is basically forbidden due to green laws (RT 2012) so you need to own.

And owning something decent not in the damn city itself is expensive as fuck these days.