However officers reminded swimmers of potential risks, together with robust currents, boat visitors, and a median depth of three.5 metres.
“The Seine stays a harmful surroundings,” mentioned native official Elise Lavielle earlier this week.
To mitigate that threat, lifeguards will assess guests’ swimming talents earlier than permitting unbiased entry, whereas a decree issued in late June launched fines for anybody swimming outdoors designated areas.
The promise to elevate the swimming ban dates again to 1988, when then-mayor of Paris and future president Jacques Chirac first advocated for its reversal, round 65 years after the follow was banned in 1923.
“MORE PEACEFUL LIFE”
“One among my predecessors (Chirac), then mayor of Paris, dreamed of a Seine the place everybody might swim,” President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X, describing the transfer as the results of a “collective effort” and a second of “delight” for France.
Forward of the Olympic Video games, authorities invested roughly 1.4 billion euros (US$1.6 billion) to enhance the Seine’s water high quality.
Since then, work carried out upstream guarantees even higher water high quality – with one catch.
On wet days, the mid-Nineteenth-century Parisian sewage system typically overflows, inflicting rain and waste waters to pour into the river.
Flags will inform bathers about air pollution ranges within the water daily, and if it rains, the websites will probably shut the day after, mentioned Paris metropolis official Pierre Rabadan.
Swimmers could also be in luck this yr, although, with climate predicted to be drier than the report rainfall through the Video games, which led to the cancellation of six of the 11 competitions held on the river.
The opening comes after the French capital through the week endured a significant heatwave that noticed Paris placed on the climate company’s highest alert stage throughout a Europe-wide heatwave.
Hidalgo, who took the inaugural swim final yr, mentioned that cleansing up the Seine for the Olympics was not the ultimate purpose however a part of a broader effort to adapt the town to local weather change and improve high quality of life.
“Heatwaves are solely going to extend”, the Paris mayor mentioned, including that creating secure swim areas will foster a “happier, and undoubtedly extra peaceable life with our fellow residents”.
One of many swimmers on Saturday expressed gratitude for the Seine’s reopening.
“Thanks, Ms. Hidalgo. That is so cool,” the bather shouted from the water.
The swimming spots are open to the general public without cost till Aug 31.
