Paris.-Finally, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, swam in a neoprene suit in the River Seine, in front of her palatial Hotel de Ville.
It was an essential and official act, but it was risky for their health to enter the water, which, despite the millions of euros invested to make it healthy, is not entirely safe for athletes at the Olympic Games.
Hidalgo’s strokes were a marketing operation for the Olympic Games, which put the French in a bad mood and might turn into a major commercial fiasco for them and for Paris. Only 21 percent of French people play sports and they are extremely indifferent to the Games.
If these changing levels of pollution in the water continue, it will be problematic for triathlon and marathon swimmers to swim in the river. They will have to continue with daily analyses.
The city is a huge traffic jam due to the restrictions imposed by the Olympic Games. Tourists have not arrived. Restaurants are threatening to close down if the first few days of the Games do not meet their expectations and to leave for their summer holidays. They fear that their suppliers will not be able to get their goods.
The QR codes that Parisians are supposed to give to get around are either not arriving or are being rejected by the authorities. Cars will not be able to be used and only the Metro will be used for travel. Teleworking in companies will be mandatory. A logistical nightmare for the authorities and for those living in Paris. Parisians have already gone on holiday en masse. Hotels are waiting for tourists who do not arrive or cancel.
The mayor finally kept her promise on Wednesday morning by swimming in the Seine, alongside Tony Estanguet and the prefect of Île-de-France. A real symbol, nine days before the start of the Olympic Games. They had to carry out analyses every day to get to today. The waters are changing in their pollution, depending on the rains, floods, the level of the river.
“It’s happiness! We’ve been dreaming regarding this for years. We’ve worked very, very hard. The water is very good, a little cool but not too much,” said Hidalgo following his brief dip.
Anne Hidalgo, her hair wet, spoke to the press from the quayside. “I have a thought for Jacques Chirac.” The then mayor and later president had promised 36 years earlier to clean up the Seine so that Parisians might swim.
Almost a month following the scheduled date and four days following the swim by Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the Mayor of Paris has kept her promise, having measured the level of faecal matter in the river but not the chemicals in its waters.
For the Mayor of Paris, “the Games were an accelerator” and this symbolic dip will mark “a deadline” and “will be an important legacy.”
Dressed in a diving suit and a neoprene suit, Hidalgo set off for Bras Marie, between the Saint-Paul district and the Saint-Louis island. Open water swimmers and two deputies of the Paris city council have already taken a dip here in the summer of 2023.
“Imagine a swimming pool here in a year. A swimming pool, with three other swimming spots,” Anne Hidalgo also projected. “The games were the driving force and the accelerator. But we need to adapt our cities to the climate and find the river,” the mayor continued. “And when we clean up the Seine, we will above all help to prevent damage to the oceans.”
Hidalgo’s presence in the waters of the Seine was far from assured in June, following several episodes of bad tests caused by heavy rains. The first date, set for June 23, had to be postponed. In the last two weeks, the situation has been resolved with the announcement by the town hall and the prefecture of positive results (particularly for faecal bacteria) and respect for the rules of the international federations of the sports concerned.
“The water is currently suitable for swimming,” explains Marc Valmassoni. The only regret for Surfrider’s water and health coordinator is that the authorities are not taking into account the chemical content of the Seine.
The then President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, had a period of five years to clean up the river, far from suspecting that in reality it would take 36 years to implement it.Clarín.
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2024-07-19 01:36:56
