PARIS (AP) — After months of anticipation, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo bathed in the long-polluted Seine on Wednesday, fulfilling a promise to show the river is clean enough to host the 2024 Olympic swimming events and the opening ceremony on the same river, scheduled for nine days later.
Clad in a wetsuit and goggles, Hidalgo jumped into the river near the imposing city hall, her office and Notre Dame Cathedral, accompanied by Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organising committee, Marc Guillaume, a senior government official in the Paris region, and swimmers from a local swimming club.
“The Seine is amazing,” Hidalgo said from the water. After emerging, she continued to rave about it. “The water is so, so nice. It’s a little cold, but it’s not bad.”
It’s part of a wider effort to highlight the improved cleanliness of the river ahead of the Summer Olympics, which begin on July 26 with lavish open-air celebrations that will include a parade of athletes on boats on the Seine. Daily water tests in early June showed dangerously high levels of E. coli, but have shown signs of improvement in recent days.
Swimming in the Seine has been banned for more than a century. Since 2015, organizers have been investing $1.5 billion to prepare the river for the Olympics and to make it cleaner for Parisians to use afterward. Plans included building a huge underground reservoir in central Paris, upgrading sewer infrastructure, and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.
Hidalgo’s swim was originally scheduled for June but was postponed due to France’s surprise parliamentary elections. The original date saw the hashtag “jechiedans la Seine” (defecating in the Seine) trending on social media, with some people threatening to protest the Olympics by defecating upstream.
Undaunted, Hidalgo carefully waded into the river on Wednesday using a ladder from an artificial pond set up for the event, which was accompanied by seven security boats.
They swam about 100 metres down the river, alternating between crawl and breaststroke.
Upstream the riverbank was crowded with curious onlookers.
“It was something I couldn’t miss,” said Lucy Coquelot, who woke up early to get the best view of Hidalgo Peak from the Pont de Sully bridge, which overlooks the swimming hole.
Other politicians have also pledged to clean up the Seine, including former French president Jacques Chirac, who made a similar promise in 1988 when he was mayor of Paris, but never delivered.
Hidalgo followed in the footsteps of France’s Sports Minister, Amélie Oudea Castella, who swam in the Seine on Saturday wearing a full-body suit.
Concerns continue over the Seine’s water levels and pollution levels, with watchdog group Hauts de Paris carrying out daily water quality tests – results in early June showed dangerously high levels of E. coli, though there have been recent signs of improvement.
The Seine will host several open water swimming events during the Games, including the Olympic marathon swimming and the Olympic and Paralympic triathlon swimming events.
Paris evacuates thousands from migrant camps during Olympic cleanup https://t.co/pco91iuxwR
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 17, 2023
