Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, fresh off a successful pedestrian day on the Champs Elysees, has revived a long-held dream of cleaning up the river Seine enough to allow Olympic open water swimmers and triathloners to swim in it if Paris wins the 2024 Olympics.
Getting the Olympics (location to be announced next year) may be an easier task than getting the river ready. While it’s better than it has been, Paris and other cities release 2.5 million cubic meters a year of wastewater into the stream, and there are a number of upstream factories that also pollute the water.
Former mayor and later President Jacques Chirac set the same goal in 1988 when he promised to swim in the river within five years, but he was never able to. Perhaps more hopeful is that the city’s canals and the Bassin de la Villette have become safe enough to support summer swimming.
Photo: Dredging the Seine (Myrabella / Wikimedia)
