Nine days before the opening of the Olympic Games, the mayor of Paris took a swim in the Seine this Wednesday morning as she had promised.
A few days after the minister in charge of the Olympic Games, it was the mayor of Paris who also took a dip in the Seine this Wednesday morning. In a partial wetsuit, Anne Hidalgo did a few strokes. At her side were Tony Estanguet, the president of the Olympic Games organizing committee and the prefect of Ile-de-France Marc Guillaume.
A symbolic act nine days before the Olympic Games, which include events in the river (triathlon and open water swimming). The suspense remains, however, over whether these will take place, even though the bacteriological state of the river has improved since the end of June and the flow of the river, still high for the season, continues to decline.
This swim, “We were waiting for it, we worked hard on it” said the mayor of Paris. For four years, the State services have implemented a vast plan to clean up the waters of the Seine for an amount of some 1.4 billion euros.
“Without the Games we would not have achieved this,” insisted Anne Hidalgo. And to recall that after the Olympic Games, bathing sites will be open to the population. “A major legacy” Olympics, according to the mayor of Paris.
In front of a crowd of journalists who had come from all over the world to witness this swim of the century, which many considered impossible, Anne Hidalgo stressed: “The star is the Seine that we have made clean.”
It remains to be seen whether the President of the Republic will also take the plunge. Emmanuel Macron had promised to do so.