Crass responses to the energy crisis may be the one thing we won’t run out of this year. The brisk “being cold is good for you” line has grim echoes of the whippet-thin fitness fanatic I shared an office with in the late 90s, who insisted his hypothermia-level thermostat was “good for your metabolism” with a pointed glance at my thighs. Nostalgia for ice on the inside of windows is so popular it might make the John Lewis Christmas ad, while determinedly cheery tips on keeping mould at bay or dealing with silverfish and plaster beetles are depressing beyond belief. Is this really where we are as a nation? (Yes, and a generation of renters has been wearily familiar with all these problems for years: heroic social housing campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa’s Twitter account gathers particularly egregious examples.) At least no one here has suggested sharing showers, as one Swiss minister has.
Thank goodness, then, for the news from France, where they’re approaching what they are calling “sobriété énergétique” (energy restraint) in the Frenchest way possible: with turtle necks, the traditional uniform of the Left Bank intellectual. Economy minister Bruno Le Maire was first off the starting blocks, declaring on the radio that the nation would no longer see him in a collar and tie, but in roll neck sweaters: “That will help us make energy savings and show restraint.” Le Maire followed through the next day with a navy-blue fine-gauge number. He has since Instagrammed himself in a dove grey one, nonchalantly holding an espresso cup in his Normandy garden.
Never one to be left out by a political fashion moment (remember his Volodymyr Zelenskiy-inspired hoodie?), Emmanuel Macron has been photographed in a chunkier roll neck I thought was black, but which was declared “anthracite”– un soupçon Milk Tray man. Meanwhile, the prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, has upped the ante with a butterfly motif slim padded jacket in meetings. I’m not convinced anyone this side of the Channel can carry this look off, but it’s all so gloriously Gallic my cockles – if no other part of me – are warmed.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
