Parisians rushed for a dip within the Seine on Saturday (July 5, 2025) because the authorities opened the river to public swimming for the first time since 1923 after an in depth clean-up operation spurred on by it getting used as a venue within the Paris Olympics.
Three websites alongside the banks of the Seine within the metropolis will have the ability to welcome over 1,000 swimmers day by day till August 31, native officers mentioned.
“We’re especially happy to have proved the sceptics wrong and to be able to deliver on the commitments we initially made on something that was very big and very complicated to achieve,” mentioned Pierre Rabadan, Paris deputy mayor for the Seine river.
The reopening of the Seine for public swimming follows efforts by authorities to enhance its water high quality so it may very well be used for Olympic occasions final summer time.
Investments included connecting tens of hundreds of houses to the sewer system, upgrading water remedy services, and setting up giant rainwater storage reservoirs to forestall sewer overflow throughout heavy storms.
Also learn: Seine swimming: Parisian custom revived at Olympics
While delays, triggered by the well being impression of heavy rains, impacted some Olympic coaching periods and the lads’s triathlon occasion, competitions within the Seine finally went forward, bolstering confidence within the river’s security for public swimming.
Daily water high quality assessments might be performed throughout the swimming season, with inexperienced and purple flags — just like seashore security methods — indicating whether or not swimming areas are open or closed.
“Obviously, if we open the swimming area, it is because the water complies with the regulations; it poses absolutely no danger to the people who go swimming,” Mr. Rabadan instructed Reuters.
As effectively because the three websites inside Paris, 14 swimming areas exterior the capital’s boundaries might be arrange on the Seine and the Marne rivers. Two of these already opened on the Marne in June.
