Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a swim in the Seine River on Wednesday this week in an effort to prove the “long-polluted” river was now clean enough to host swimming during this year’s Olympic Games.
Earlier this year the water showed unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria, AP reported.
During her swim she was joined by swimmers from local clubs, Paris 2024 chief Tony Estanguet and the top government official for the Paris region, Marc Guillaume, the report says.
Hidalgo said during the swim: “The Seine is exquisite. The water is very, very good. A little cool, but not so bad.’’
She called the day “a dream” and a “testimony that we have achieved a lot of work”.
Estanguet added: “After twenty years of doing sports in the river, I find it admirable that we are trying to clean it up.”
In preparation for the Summer Games starting on July 26 with a grand open-air ceremony featuring an athletes’ parade on boats on the Seine, efforts are underway to highlight the river’s improved cleanliness.
As AP notes, swimming in the Seine has been banned for over a century and since 2015, organizers have invested $1.5 billion to prepare the river for the Olympics and ensure a cleaner Seine for Parisians post-Games.
This plan included building a massive underground water storage basin in central Paris, renovating sewer infrastructure, and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.
