About 1,000 swimmers a day will be allowed to use three bathing sites after €1.4bn clean-up programme
From the article:
Parisians and tourists flocked to take a dip in the Seine River this weekend after city authorities gave the green light for it to be used for public swimming for the first time in more than a century. The opening followed a comprehensive clean-up programme sped up by its use as a venue in last year’s Paris Olympics after people who regularly swam in it illegally, lobbied for its transformation. The outgoing mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, also helped to champion the plans, jumping in the river herself before the Olympics. About 1,000 swimmers a day will be allowed access to three bathing sites on the banks of the Seine for free, until the end of August. About €1.4bn (£1.2bn) has been invested in the project including inconnecting more than 20,000 homes to the sewer system (the waste from which had hitherto been dumped directly into the Seine), improving water treatment facilities and building substantial rainwater storage reservoirs equivalent in size to 20 Olympic swimming pools to avoid overflows of sewage during rain storms. Paris’s efforts have been in part inspired by, and have helped to inspire, similar popular projects in cities around Europe where campaigners have fought to reclaim waterways for swimming.
This is one of those old, famous rivers that has been so thoroughly exploited by human use for so long it's almost startling to see it changed in this way. Someday future generations swimming in the Seine may be shocked to hear that the river was ever so polluted that people were disgusted at the idea of swimming in it.
