Despite heavy rain, the streets are a hive of activity. Trucks deliver racks of raw meat, stacks of pink cakes and basmati rice, small clouds of starchy powder escaping as the sacks are piled up inside shops that sell coconut oil, curry powders and other Indian wares. I am in Little India, a pocket of Paris that saw an influx of South Indian and Sri Lankan Tamils move here in the 1980s following the outbreak of civil war.
I turn on to a quieter street scattered with Indian sweet shops. Suddenly, the buildings give way to rows of train tracks. Facing them stands a six-storey corner building that went by utterly unnoticed until very recently.