Paris to allow swimming in the Seine River after 100 years!

Good news from Paris! Those who have been missing swimming in the famous Seine River can do so now the government of France has allowed swimming in the river nearly after a century! Yes. you read that correctly. The city had banned swimming in the River Seine nearly 100 years ago because of the dirty water.

But now, the beautiful French city, Paris is in its final stage of a historic river clean-up. So very soon, the river will have swimmers and divers back. All thanks to the Olympics which are all set to be held in Paris in 2024 summers.

Seine River will see three Olympic and Paralympic events, namely triathlon, marathon swimming and Para-triathlon.

Pierre Rabadan, deputy Paris mayor in charge of the Olympics, said, “When people see athletes swimming in the Seine with no health problems, they’ll be confident themselves to start going back in the Seine. It’s our contribution for the future.”

Paris experienced its river quality going bad because of industrial waste and a booming population. This also affected aquatic life badly. The condition got so bad that in the 1960s only three species of fish were recorded in Paris.

The ban on swimming in Seine came into effect in 1923. But in the last 20 years, the river has been experiencing improvements in terms of stopping bacterias to entering the river.

But the problem was different. Samuel Colin-Canivez, chief engineer for sanitation at Paris city hall explained, “But the difficulty has been in eradicating those last few percentage points to ensure it can be officially classified as clean.”

But when the work is done, mayor Anne Hidalgo said that three spots on the Seine will be open for public bathing from summer 2025.