France was gripped by chaos on Thursday, July 2, 2026, as an exceptional sale of discounted air conditioners at Lidl descended into long lines, emptied shelves, and physical fights between customers nationwide. The retailer had put 200,000 units up for sale — nowhere near enough to meet demand as yet another heatwave looms next week following a record-breaking heatwave just last week.
Videos of the various incidents went viral across social media.
In Lyon, a youth was seen ripping an air conditioner from a woman while they tussled on the ground. He then proceeded to push her back multiple times.
In another video, a large brawl broke out between numerous women, including women in headscarves.
Overall, the situation was quite chaotic in numerous locations.
“Lidl France deplores the incidents that occurred in its stores,” the retailer told AFP in response, acknowledging that its employees “had to manage tensions, in a sometimes difficult climate.” The company attributed the shortages to “the sales cycle of [its] products,” explaining: “Products ordered one year in advance and arrive on Thursdays in our supermarkets, always at a fixed price.”
The chain had also tried to defuse tension with humor on social media, responding to a post about a fight over a Lidl air conditioner with a meme referencing Game of Thrones. But the levity didn’t stop clashes from breaking out at multiple Lidl locations across the country, including in Rennes and Nanterre.
In Nanterre, around a hundred people gathered according to BFMTV. A line began forming at 7:30 a.m. even though the store didn’t open until 8:30 a.m. The news outlet described that the doors then “collapsed” under pressure from the crowd trying to make their way into the store. It further noted that “fights broke out between several people over the ten air conditions that were available.”
A similar scene played out in Paris, where crowd were largely good-natured, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP), though altercations still broke out among customers trying to cut ahead.
In Hazebrouck, in northern France, journalists from La Voix du Nord reported that there were only four air conditioning units available for around 60 customers. Le Parisien documented similar crowd scenes at several Lidl stores across the Île-de-France region, while Ouest-France reported that police also had to intervene in Trélazé and near Angers, where the situation escalated as soon as one store opened.
The Lidl frenzy is just the latest flashpoint in a broader rush on fans and air conditioners across France and neighboring countries as the country braces for another heatwave forecast by Météo France. Many residents are eager to avoid a repeat of the extreme heat seen at the end of June — and lines had already been forming at stores selling air conditioners, fans, and even survival or cooling blankets in Meudon in the preceding weeks.
Belgium saw a nearly identical episode at Aldi, where a promotional sale of air conditioners priced at 145 euros similarly spiraled into disorder, with customers wrestling units out of each other’s hands.
Other major French retailers have faced the same surge in demand. Fnac Darty CEO Enrique Martinez told BFM Business that “people were waiting outside the stores from 4 a.m.” during the heatwave, and that “some came to blows.” He added that “the teams worked hard to serve everyone and bring in as much equipment as possible” from warehouses.
At Leclerc, the numbers tell a similar story. “We sold 700,000 fans and coolers in three weeks” — an increase of almost 200 percent, Michel-Édouard Leclerc said Thursday on TF1. “We sold nearly 60,000 air conditioners, that’s also more than 35 percent [more].” He added: “We still have some left. Now it’s distribution problems to take into account population movements with ‘departures on vacation.'”