Bathing in the Seine, a dream that is getting closer for the Paris 2024 Olympics

The old “dream” of the Parisians of swimming in the Seine seems closer due to the Paris 2024 Olympic Gamesalthough some observers remain skeptical.

“500 days from the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we are one step away from realizing what will be one of your greatest legacies,” French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted on Monday.

In 1990, then mayor of Paris, Jacques Chiracwho will become president five years later, promises Parisians to bathe in the Seine “in three years”.

Three decades later, the state, the city and other municipalities have injected nearly 1,400 million euros (1,500 million dollars) for this “dream”, in the words of the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgowill become reality.

Disputed between the disabled and the Eiffel Tower, the open water swimming events and the triathlon should mark the return of the general public to the river, where swimming has been prohibited since 1923.

The authorities plan to open around twenty bathing areas in the Paris region in the years to come. In the capital, the installation of four is under consideration.

The Minister of Sports, Amelie Oudea-Casteraindicated at the end of February that the number and location of these “stations” will be determined after the Games, “by the end of 2024”.

The main challenge is the Wastewater which mix with rainwater on its way to the Seine or its tributary, the Marne, which is also part of the plan.

Preventing this cocktail from contaminating the river is one of the objectives of the storage tank built near the Gare d’Austerliz in Paris, said the city councilor of the Seine, Pierre Rabadan.

The prefecture of the Ile-de-France region, which coordinates the plan with the city of Paris, hopes “eliminate three quarters of pollution by 2024” related to bad attacks.

“If we reach this objective of 75%, it should be possible to swim in the Seine”, explains the prefecture. Sanitation works are increasing in the region, along the Seine and the Marne.

Based on a 2006 European directive, the regulation imposes the microbiological analysis of two faecal bacteria: ‘Escherichia coli’ and intestinal enterococci.

“Last summer, the pool of daily samples was good or great 7 days out of 10. And that was before any ongoing work,” says Rabadan.

The proportion rose to 92% between the end of July and August, the period during which the Olympic event will take place next year, added the city councilor.

This does not exclude “unforeseen events” such as strong storms which cause the discharge of contaminated water. In this case, the organizers would have “two or three days” to postpone the events, he said.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t rain in the three days before the Olympics”explains Françoise Lucas, researcher in microbiology at the University of Paris-Este Créteil.

However, the boreal summer of 2021 “was very humid”, he recalls.

Michel Riottot, of the environmental association France Nature Environnement (FNE), is very skeptical about a system developed with performic acid to treat wastewater from the Valenton wastewater treatment plant, south-east of Paris.

Rioto fears the “massive destruction of the ecosystem” if there is a leak of this acid, but the local sanitation service Siaap assures that this treatment is “much more effective than chemical disinfectants”.

Ammonium discharges have also been divided by 20 since 1997, which has allowed the number of fish species to go from 3 in the 1990s to 34 in the Seine and 37 in the Marne, according to the president of Siaap, Francois-Marie Didier.

Regarding leptospira, another potentially deadly bacterium, “cases of transmission are limited”, “so this should not impact the development of the Games”, estimates the national reference center based at the Institut Pasteur.

(With information from AFP)

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