This is only a postponement. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, will not swim in the Seine on June 23, the date initially planned. The elected official announced this Wednesday that she was postponing her “little crawl” in the river between the second round of the legislative elections and the start of the Olympic Games.
“It will not be June 23,” said the elected socialist on the sidelines of an inauguration. “We will give ourselves time to get through the legislative elections and we will come in July, but before the Games,” she added. City Hall wants to organize it on a Sunday, in order to make it a popular event.
Rain and elections help the mayor
Before the surprise dissolution announced on Sunday by Emmanuel Macron, the date of June 23 was no longer really relevant due to “the heavy rains in May and the very strong flow of the river”, the town hall had indicated at the beginning of June . The legislative elections took place on Sunday June 30, the first postponement date mentioned, and on July 7.
The mayor promised to take this “historic dive” into the river before the Olympics, for which the State and the Ile-de-France communities have invested 1.4 billion euros in order to clean it up and make it swimmable. Indeed, star of these Olympics, the Seine will host the opening ceremony as well as the triathlon, swimming-marathon and paratriathlon events.
But suspense remains over the holding of the Olympic events since the “test events” of August 2023 which had to be largely canceled: the quality of the water did not correspond to European standards based on the analyzes of two fecal bacteria .
Since the beginning of June and the commissioning of the Austerlitz rainwater and wastewater retention basin, with a capacity of 50,000 m3, daily samples have been taken upstream of the Olympic site.
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In the event of intense precipitation, untreated water (a mixture of rain and wastewater) can be released into the river, a phenomenon that retention structures are intended to prevent. Except that there is no alternative, plan B consisting of postponing the tests for a few days, but not changing location.