After more than 100 years of waiting, the Parisians can finally bathe in the waters of the Seine River. As of this Saturday, July 5, citizens and tourists can take dip in one of the three points enabled in the city to do so, taking over from the athletes, who already opened the river during the Olympics last year.
“Making SENA suitable for swimming means responding in the first place to the objective of adaptation to the Climate changebut also of quality of life, “said the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.
The reopening of SENA to bathroom It arrives at the best time: in full heat wave that whips a Francecon temperatures that have touched the 40ºC this week in the French capital. However, the authorities warn that it will only be possible if the weather conditions allow it and if the water analysis mark a low percentage of the presence of bacteria by e.coli and enterococcus. These same pathogens forced to postpone several swimming tests during the Olympic Games and generated controversy after causing various infections in several athletes.
Bathroom in the Seine in front of the Eiffel Tower, this Saturday in Paris. / THOMAS PADILLA / AP
“I would not put a foot in the foot in there,” Mamadou says with a laugh, while attending the tables of one of the bars near the river. The Regional Health Agency (ARS) wants to calm the concerns generated by the state of the agua. Therefore, it will analyze three times a week at the bathroom points to monitor their quality, although they warn that the Risks For the health They persist, especially for vulnerable populations. “The controls carried out for the opening at the end of last week gave positive results, so, except for last minute restrictions, the pool may reopen on July 5 as planned,” said Sylvie Drungeon, responsible for Environmental health of the departmental delegation of the Ars in Paris.
This new improved measurement system can detect the presence of bacteria in 15 to 20 minutes, unlike 24 to 48 hours required by traditional laboratory analysis used during Olympics.
An infrastructure of 14 million euros
To realize this project, the Paris City Council has enabled several swimming points; in front of the island of Saint-Louis, next to the Bercy park and near the Torre Eiffel. Each of these spaces will have capacity for more than a hundred people and will have a team of 16 lifeguards in charge of supervising the facilities.
The Prefect of Paris, Marc Guillaumehe wanted to emphasize that, despite the fact that SENA will already be suitable for the bathroom, “it is still forbidden to bathe in other places where there are no lifeguards that can guarantee security”, since it can be dangerous due to the “circulation of boats.”
Another bathing area on the Seine River, in the Bras Marie. / THOMAS PADILLA / AP
These new infrastructure, built with wood, have meant a investment of almost 14 million euros, which are added to the 1,400 million already destined to the construction of the Austerlitz basin, capable of storing about 50,000 cubic meters of water and in charge of reducing its toxic elements.
Return SENA to the Parisians: a centenary dream
The idea of transforming SENA into a pool Natural is a desire that was born a hundred years ago. Bassin de la Villette’s success, opened north of Paris in 2017, served as a definitive impulse to make this project a reality.
Swimming with Sena is again possible a century after this practice became fashionable in the mid -seventeenth century. It ended in 1923, when a prefectoral decree prohibited from getting the river due to river traffic and pollution. That did not prevent the Parisians from continuing to bathing until the 60s, when the administration decided to tighten sanctions in the face of growing poor state of the waters.
Years passed until the debate about the possibility of recovering the seine as a bathroom returned to the policy of the hand of Jacques Chirac In 1990. The former president of the Republic presented a plan to clean the river and with him a dream he never managed to fulfill. It was the current mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who resumed her legacy and made it come true on the occasion of the 2024 Olympics.
This Saturday, the Parisians have finally fulfilled Chirac’s dream and enjoyed his Olympic heritage: a clean, accessible and everyone.
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