SEINE SWIMMING: COMEBACK FOR BYGONE PARIS PASTIME?
Seine swimming: comeback for bygone Paris pastime?
Taking a dip with the Eiffel Tower on the horizon was all the rage in 17th century Paris, but for 100 years swimming in the Seine has been banned.
People bathe in the Seine river near the Pont d'Iéna, in June 1946 in Paris, during a heat wave at the beginning of the 1946 summer. In the background, the Pont de Bir-Hakeim.
(Copyright: AFP)
It is hoped this won't be for much longer, with Paris hosting the 2024 Olympics, and triathlon and open swim events set to take place again in the river.
On Friday, however, the Seine was declared unfit for swimming one month from the Games, following the latest water tests.
Here we look back at the bygone days of Seine swimming.
- 17th-century skinny dipping -
In the 17th century, before the revolution that toppled the monarchy, bathing in the Seine was a fashionable pastime -- and one that was often conducted naked.
By the end of the century, skinny dipping had been outlawed, but Seine swimming remained very popular, with floating pools installed along the banks.
The most famous of these was the Deligny pool, erected in 1801 on a dozen barges and named after one of the first lifeguards to give bankside lessons.
There were some twenty such spots at various points along the river by the end of the 19th century, before they all fell into disuse with the arrival of land-based pools.
- 1923: banned -
Some diehards continued to slip on their speedos until the practice was officially banned in 1923 due to dangers from river traffic and pollution.
Still today, a brigade patrols the waters for any divers.
At times exceptions have been made for Seine swimming, including during heatwaves in the 1940s and official races.
- 1988: Mayor's promise -
When 5,000 pike were released in the river in 1988, Jacques Chirac as mayor of Paris declared that in five years, Parisians would again be able to swim in the Seine.
"I'll come with towels and antibiotics," quipped the environment minister at the time, Brice Lalonde.
Chirac repeated his pledge two years later in an interview on French television, adding that he would personally take a public dip in 1993, though he never did.
- 2024: Olympic comeback -
Current Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo revived the dream when bidding for the French capital to get the 2024 Games, promising triathlon events in the Seine.
She also added another goal, to install permanent swimming areas for the general public after 2024.
Like Chirac, Hidalgo said she would jump in herself to mark the year of the Games.
The plan has hit some snags.
An open water swimming World Cup event scheduled in August 2023 was cancelled because heavy rain caused sewers to overflow, sparking a temporary rise in bacteria levels.
And on Friday, results released by the Paris mayor's office showed the river was still failing water quality tests one month before the Olympics.
- 2025: free for all? -
If all does go to plan, from 2025 the public will be able to swim in the Seine at three sites: one near Notre Dame, another near the Eiffel Tower and a third in Bercy, a quieter neighbourhood in the east.
The three designated stretches of water will be cordoned off, monitored and accessible via a pontoon.
Some 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) has been invested to make the Seine and its main tributary the Marne swimmable, notably by improving waste water collection management.
A key feature of the project involves building a massive underground rainwater storage tank near Austerlitz train station to hold excess waste water to ensure it does flow into the Seine, as it does now.
© Copyright 2024 ETX Studio
2024-06-29T12:09:17Z dg43tfdfdgfd