Paris and Chamonix, France – Ibrahim Doukanthi prepares to plunge into the Canal Saint-Denis. It is almost noon, and the temperature in the Paris region is nearing 30 degrees Celsius (86F).He grew up just north of Saint-Denis, one of France’s poorest municipalities, and now lives in La Plaine, hundreds of metres from the Stade de France, the country’s national stadium.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list“The water here is completely normal,” he said. “It’s just that it’s green, so you don’t know what’s in it – that’s what makes it a bit scary.”He has been jumping into the canal – technically not open to swimmers – to cool off during the recent heatwaves.Like many residents of Paris’s sprawling, historically disinvested suburbs, Doukanthi had to be creative to beat the heat while living in an apartment building without air conditioning.“What I do is take the spray bottles – I call them ‘pshit-pshit’ – fill them with water, spray myself down, then sit in front of the fan,” he said. “It cools you off like crazy.” Ibrahim Doukanthi has been trying to cool off in a canal during France’s heatwave [Phineas Rueckert/Al Jazeera]Sitting in the shade at a flea market in Saint-Denis, Natifa Segli, a municipal employee, criticised the government’s response to the heatwave.“I don’t feel like we learned the lesson from the 2003 heatwave. Here we are in 2026, and this heatwave was horrible,” she said. “Even at work, we weren’t sheltered. The temperatures in the offices were very, very hot.”Fo …
