Paris mayor promises to swim in Seine ahead of Games

PARIS : Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo will swim in the River Seine ahead of this year's Summer Olympics, she said on Wednesday.

The Seine is now suitable for bathing two days out of three on average in the summer, but Paris is hoping to further improve the water quality as the 2024 Olympics loom.

The primary goal is to make the river clean enough for swimming by 2025, and the Games will boost the process, even though sporting events in the Seine were cancelled last year because health standards were not met following heavy rains and a sewer problem.

"We will bathe in the Seine," Hidalgo said in her New Year ceremony at the City Hall, inviting regional authority boss Marc Guillaume to join her. "In this historical dive more than 30 years after Jacques Chirac’s promise."

Former Paris mayor Chirac in 1988 promised he would swim in the Seine "in the presence of witnesses".

Olympic Open water and triathlon events are scheduled to take place in the Seine during the Paris 2024 Games.