Anne Hidalgo, long-time Mayor of Paris, France, has used actions, not words, to prove that the city’s River Seine is ready for Olympic swimmers, by putting on her swimwear and taking a deep dive into the matter.
Clean up and protests
For over a century it has not been legal to swim in the Seine, which winds through France from Dijon country to Monet’s Honfleur and the English Channel. The ban was due to river traffic, poor sewage systems and dangerous levels of pollution, but a massive €1.4-billion clean-up operation and the installation of a storm basin near the Gare d’Austerlitz were supposed to change that in time for the Olympics and beyond, enabling Parisians to use the river for leisure once more.
Not everyone was impressed by the money being spent on what was seen as an international showcase, at a time of fiscal cutbacks. A “poop in the Seine” protest was even organised on social media to coincide with a demonstration swim by Hidalgo and French President Emmanuel Macron scheduled for the end of June, although it’s not clear whether anyone actually went ahead with the show of discontent.
Bacteria still present on some days
However, work continued to prepare the river for the Games, with water quality tests as recent as early July by Paris authorities still showing that unacceptable levels of faecal bacteria remain present in the river on some days. The Hidalgo-Macron swim off was postponed by the snap election and amid concerns over concentrations of E.Coli and Enterococci bacteria – pollutants capped by World Triathlon guidelines.
Now though, on 17 July 2024, Hidalgo has finally kept her word, swimming a city centre section of the river between the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) and Notre Dame Cathedral, including getting her head below the water.
It’s a dream day […] The promise was kept. It was a lot of work, but we did it.
Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris
“It’s a dream day,” she said later, hailing the transformation of the river into a swimming facility for the future, “a milestone” and “a major legacy” and pointing out, “after the Games we will have a swimming pool in the river for all the people, for the Parisian people and for the tourists also.”
Hidalgo’s big splash followed another demo Seine swim, by French Sports Minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra last week. The only person left to put his swimming trunks into action ahead of the Olympic competititors is Macron.
