More than 30 years after the declaration of Jacques Chirac, who affirmed that he would “bathe in the Seine in front of witnesses” in 1993, the promise could well be kept, but by Anne Hidalgo. The current mayor of Paris launched this Wednesday during her wishes at the Town Hall: “We will swim in the Seine” inviting the regional prefect Marc Guillaume to accompany her in this “historic dive”, which she intends to carry out just before the Olympic Games (July 26 – August 11).
The mayor announced in July 2023 the opening for the summer of 2025 of three swimming sites for the general public in the capital, in Bercy, Grenelle and between Île Saint-Louis and the Marais. At the time of these announcements, the First Deputy Emmanuel Grégoire and the Deputy for Sport Pierre Rabadan had taken a little bath. But the socialist mayor did not take the plunge.
1.4 billion euros invested since 2016
Swimming in the Seine, which was already practiced under the Ancien Régime, was banned in Paris a century ago (1923) by a prefectural decree, and a river brigade constantly patrols to prevent diving. The Olympic Games must inaugurate the reunion of swimming with the Seine: the triathlon and open water swimming events will start from the Alexandre-III bridge which connects the Grand Palais to the Invalides.
But the organizers of the Paris Olympics faced serious disappointments last summer during these test events. Before the cancellation of the two triathlon events (para and mixed), it was the open water swimming events that had to be canceled due to pollution caused by an unusual summer rain episode.
Since 2016, the State and local authorities in Ile-de-France have invested around 1.4 billion euros to make the Seine and the Marne, its main tributary, swimmable. A colossal effort to be put mainly to the credit of the organization of the Olympic Games, according to the mayor: “The clean and swimmable Seine is a subject that would perhaps have taken 20 years, if we had not had an agreement spouse,” she declared during the last Paris Council. “Everyone said it was impossible, we did it,” said Anne Hidalgo.