One year after the Paris Games and Hidalgo's dive, swimming areas on the Seine will open to the general public on July 5
By The New Obs with AFP
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Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo swims in the Seine River in Paris on July 17, 2024. LAFARGUE RAPHAEL/POOL/SIPA
All aboard! Three swimming spots in the Seine will open to the public on July 5 in Paris, as a legacy of the Olympic and Paralympic Games that saw athletes and the capital's mayor swim in the river , the prefect of the Ile-de-France region announced on Wednesday, May 14.
Meet on July 5 at 8 a.m. on the banks of Brass Marie, opposite Île Saint-Louis, where the socialist mayor dived on July 17, 2024, with Tony Estanguet, head of the Olympic and Paralympic Games organizing committee, in front of the world's cameras. A historic first after a century of banning.
"It was an extraordinary moment, but swimming for the Games was not an end in itself. Making the Seine swimmable is first and foremost a response to the objective of adapting to climate change, but also of improving quality of life," declared Anne Hidalgo at a press conference.
In addition to the Marie Arm site, the general public will be able to take a free dip at the Grenelle Arm (west) opposite the Île aux Cygnes, not far from the Eiffel Tower, and at Bercy, to the east. Four sites will also open at the end of June on the Marne, where swimming has been prohibited since 1970. Including the historic Joinville-le-Pont.
Supervised and supervised swimmingSwimming will be supervised and monitored, said Pierre Rabadan, Paris's deputy mayor for sports. The city expects to welcome between 150 and 300 people at any given time at the three sites, which will close at the end of August.
As on the beaches, a system of flags - green, yellow and red - will allow the flow of the Seine and the quality of the water to be known, which was unfit for swimming during part of the Paris Games due to failure to comply with bacteriological standards.
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Checks will be carried out daily, and swimming may be suspended in the event of rainy weather, according to Marc Guillaume, prefect of the Île-de-France region.
He said he was "even more optimistic" about water quality than last summer, given the decontamination work. "Since this summer, 2,000 new connections to the sewerage networks have been made. We have decontaminated the Seine to 80% of what was expected. For the Olympic Games, we had to decontaminate two-thirds to reach the bacteria standards compatible with swimming," explained the prefect.
By The New Obs with AFP
