A year after the Olympic athletes, the first bathers entered the Seine water, Saturday July 5 in the morning, equipped with yellow floats, in the heart of Paris, noted a journalist from the France-Presse agency. It was forbidden to bathe in the river since 1923. At 8 am, a few dozen people plunged, under the close surveillance of master swimmers in fluorescent yellow t-shirts, in 25 degrees, reported Pierre Rabadan, deputy mayor of Paris, on RMC on Saturday morning.
At the Arm of Grenelle, near the Eiffel Tower, at Bras Marie, opposite the Île Saint-Louis, and in Bercy, at the François-Mitterrand library, basins arranged with pontoons, ladders, seaside furniture, showers and changing rooms await Ile-de-France and tourists. They can enjoy it for free until August 31, if the weather permits.
The Arm Marie (center) can accommodate 150 people simultaneously, Bercy (east) up to 700 people, including 300 in the bathing area. The Grenelle site (west), the only ones to have a secure pool for families with a background, has a capacity of 200 people. A nautical base will offer the practice of kayak for free.
The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo (Socialist Party), in the presence of the Minister of Sports, Marie Barsacq, must inaugurate the three sites, starting with that of the Bras Marie. It was there that she was bathed last year, before the start of the Olympic Games (OJ), more than thirty years after the promise made by Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris.
“One of my predecessors, then mayor of Paris, dreamed of a seine where everyone could swim. Tomorrow, his promise will be kept ”wrote on X Emmanuel Macron.
Dangerous environment
Promised legacy of the Olympic Games, swimming in the Seine first responds to a need for adaptation to climate change of the capital, where episodes of heat wave will multiply and intensify. More than 1.4 billion euros were invested to improve the water quality upstream of the river, with wastewater capture work to prevent them from spilling. But given that in Paris rainwater and wastewater mix in a single network, the only solution in the event of abundant precipitation is to pour the overflow into the Seine. The important rains recorded during the Olympic Games had often rendered the water unfit for swimming for athletes.
This summer, as at the beach, green, yellow or red flags will make it possible to know the flow of the Seine and the quality of the water, analyzed by instant probes and culture samples. If the lights are red, swimming will be closed.
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It will take place under close surveillance, to the point that each swimmer will have to have his aquatic ease evaluated by a lifeguard before swimming independently in the basins-most of them without bottom, with a depth of 3.50 meters on average.
Because the river is a living body of water which remains a dangerous environment, recall the authorities. “There is a risk of drowning because of the vase and agripping plants, strong currents, the risk of hydrocution and river traffic”recalls the sub-prefect Elise Lavielle, adding that there was “Thirteen deaths in the Seine in 2024” and already “Three this year”.
While the hot weather could try some to throw themselves in the water outside the authorized places, a prefectural decree was taken at the end of June to verbalize wild swimming. The river controls are also reinforced in Paris, the first European river port for the transport of passengers, with boat drivers. The Bras Marie site, a nerveless point of river traffic, will only be opened in the morning, after negotiations with the boatmen. For the summer of 2026, other perennial sites are being studied.
The continuation of the depollution work of the river downstream from Paris lets hope for the installation, next year, new swimming areas at the exit of the capital, such as the island Monsieur (Hauts-de-Seine) and Saint-Denis Island (Seine-Saint-Denis). Four sites have also already opened to bathers in the Marne, including that of Joinville-le-Pont (Val-de-Marne). The main tributary of the Seine was prohibited for swimming since the 1970s.
