On the morning of July 17, Paris Mayor Hidalgo finally made good on her promise to swim in the Seine River with Tony Estanguet, President of the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, and Marc Guillaume, Ile-de-France and Prefect of the Paris region. It was a symbolic gesture just nine days before the start of the Olympics.
Paris mayor takes the plunge in the Seine, realizing a promise
Hidalgo, who had just climbed back onto the dock after jumping into the Seine Wednesday morning, with wet hair, told the media in attendance, “We’ve been dreaming about this for many years and we’ve worked very, very hard and the water is very good, a little bit cool, but not very cool.”
The then mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, had promised in 1988 to make the river fit for swimming again and vowed to prove it by swimming in the Seine. But he never made it happen during his lifetime. More than three decades later, in front of many media cameras and watched by bystanders on the river, Hidalgo spoke, “I think of Jacques Chirac. I think he had really wanted to swim (in the Seine).”
Previously, the French Minister of Sport, Olympic and Paralympic Games Udaya-Castera (Amelie Oudea-Castera) 13 first in the Seine River section of the river flowing through Paris, swimming, trying to dissolve the outside world on the Seine River water quality can meet the standards to ensure that the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games and the water project as scheduled worries. Paris Olympic Games is scheduled to open on the 26th, athletes from various countries will then take a boat through the center of Paris, along the Seine River about 6 kilometers of the parade route to appear. Subsequently, according to the schedule of events, the triathlon individual and mixed swimming events, the marathon swim and the swimming part of the Paralympic triathlon will be held in the Seine River.
Nearly a month after the original date, and with the Minister of Sport taking the lead, Paris Mayor Hidalgo has also finally come to the Seine to fulfill his well-known promise. There are still nine days to go before the start of the Olympics in Paris, and there will be a variety of events taking place on the river. “The Olympics are a gas pedal”, said Hidalgo, and this symbolic swim will be “a milestone” and “an important legacy”.
Dressed in a wetsuit and accompanied by two companions, Hidalgo set off into the water along the stretch of the Marie River between the St. Paul district and the Île St. Louis on the right bank of Paris, where the two deputy mayors of Paris also took a dip in the summer of 2023. Hidalgo also predicted, “Imagine that in a year’s time, there will be a swimming place, a swimming pool, and three other swimming places.”
The mayor of Paris continued, “The Olympics are the driving force and the gas pedal, but we need to adapt our city to the climate and go back to the Seine. When we clean up the Seine, we will of course make the Olympics possible, but above all, we will help to avoid destroying the sea”.
After this swim in Hidalgo, the City of Paris will organize an open water race, which will be attended by a large number of licensed swimmers, who will also be able to swim in the Seine. This swimming PR by the mayor is far from being able to take place as planned due to several consecutive heavy rains that led to poor analysis. The event scheduled for June 23 had to be postponed.
The deadlock was broken in the last two weeks when Paris City Hall and the regional government announced positive results in terms of compliance with the standards of the international federations of the sports in question, in particular with regard to fecal bacteria levels. “It is now safe to swim,” explains Marc Valmassoni, health and water coordinator for the non-profit organization Surfrider. The only regret, he notes, is that the authorities did not take into account the chemical composition of the Seine.
A historic commitment fulfilled: Hidalgo echoes Chirac’s vision
In the end, Hidalgo made good on a promise that had existed in French politics for nearly 40 years: in 1988, Jacques Chirac, then running for a third term as mayor of Paris, promised to clean up the river as part of his “Clean Seine” program. The future French president hoped to clean up the Seine in five years, not realizing that it would actually take 36 years to implement.
For the woman who kept her promise, Hidalgo said it was “a dream day”. It’s a huge job,” she said, “with all the technical aspects, the infrastructure that needs to be connected, all the boats …… and we’ve done it.
Go back to May 15, 1990, when Jacques Chirac was one of the guests on the French TV3 program “Walk of the Century”. Jacques Chirac was one of the guests on the program “Walk of the Century” on the French television channel 3. The theme of the program was “The Capital in the Year 2000”, in which he reiterated his campaign promises as Mayor of Paris. Chirac boasted: “The variety of species in the Seine is constantly increasing. According to statistics, more than 25 different species of fish have found suitable conditions in the Seine …… That’s why I said you can make a river clean, and I also said that in three years’ time, I will swim into the Seine in front of witnesses to prove that the Seine has become a clean river! “.
It’s worth noting that French President Emmanuel Macron said at the end of February that he would also swim in the Seine, without specifying a date. Hidalgo’s entourage told AFP that Macron “declined” an invitation to join the mayor in the water on June 23rd. “I think he has other priorities this week,” Sports Minister Udaya Castella told AFP on Monday in response to the new date. She was referring to the current political situation in France, which is not yet clear after the parliamentary elections.
Since 2016, the French and Parisian regional governments have invested €1.4 billion to make the Seine and its main tributary, the Marne, which flows to Paris, swimmable. The modernization of sewage treatment plants, the connection of barges to the main drainage system, and the collection of plastic waste. The plan has also led to five major projects, including a rainwater and wastewater cistern near Paris’s Gare d’Austerlitz, a veritable underground cathedral cut into the heart of Paris.
