Turning up the heat

This evening around 6pm, I received an email marked as "urgent" from the Institut Pasteur. We were in the middle of a heat wave: after riding high's in the mid-60s for the past couple of weeks, it suddenly jumped up to the high 90's for two days before dropping back to... the 60s/70s Fahrenheit, Paris's interpretation of summer. Just as these Europeans can't figure what to do as soon as a light dusting of snow covers the town, they also can't quite wrap their heads around the concept of heat as a part of normal, everyday life. Heat, like snow, leads to some sort of panic which results in mass vacationing, or at least not working. Scientists are no exception here: the Pasteur didn't have enough AC to support our building and still keep the animals in their controlled climate, so by Monday late afternoon/early evening, they decided to shut off AC to all the building except the animal housing facilities and send us an "urgent" no-AC warning email concluding in the following recommendation:

Summer nights in Paris: these days the sun isn't setting until after 10pm.

"Il est donc recommandé de sécuriser et d'arrêter les manipulations en cours et de quitter le campus."
Literal Translation: "It is therefore recommended to secure and stop all experiments in progress and to leave the campus."
Effective Translation: It's too damned hot. Stop working and go home.

Oh, the French and their work ethic.