"You can feel the freshness of the water immediately" – How the early heatwave turns the Atlantic coast into a place of refuge

The scene feels more like mid-July than the last days of May: full beach parking lots, people carrying coolers under their arms, children with sun hats in the sand – and above it all, that shimmering heat already heavy on the streets even in the early morning. While large parts of France are groaning under an unusually early heatwave, thousands of people are flocking to the Atlantic coast of Charente-Maritime.…