I'm going to swim a 1000m race [0] there tomorrow morning! Wish me luck HN!
For anyone visiting Paris, the sewer museum is definitely a unique experience and worth a visit (although smelly). It gives you a grasp of what a monumental it was to build the sewers back then. You can also see the overflow reservoirs that dump water into the Seine when there is heavy rain (they were talking about the cleanup efforts leading to the Olympics when I was there some years ago).
One of the benefits of EU regulations is that they have brought some order to the dumping of raw sewage into rivers and seas. But there is still a lot of work to do.
Local authorities from lots of EU regions generally avoid measuring water quality after rainy days because raw sewage is still often dumped under those conditions.
Even in Basel, where the Rheine is really clean, authorities sometimes advise not to swim.
The source of the Seine is in Burgundy. Not a European, so wondering what the relationship between the Seine and EU regulations is.
An important part of the pollution in the Seine is from Paris itself. Due to being an old city, the sewer system and the flood water system (i.e rain) goes through mostly the same tubes and are dump directly in the Seine. This leads to the river being full of biological contaminent, a.k.a, shit.
A lot of effort was done to remediate this very old issue, with a very big push before the Olympics games (but improvement to the sewage system has been going on for years).
The seine, burgundy and paris are all part of EU.
> The seasonal opening of the Seine for swimming is seen as a key legacy of the Paris 2024 Olympics, when open-water swimmers and triathletes competed in its waters which were specially cleaned for the event.
Meanwhile...
> The Olympic legacy of the Seine has taken another hit, with a second athlete taken to hospital after competing in the murky waters.
https://www.thetimes.com/sport/olympics/article/second-olymp...
It seems neither of them were clearly linked to the river? The articles on this guy were kinda clickbaity saying he "was rushed to the hospital" when he tweeted that he rushed to the hospital because of the stomach bug
Since the reason for not swimming in the Seine was sewage, a "stomach bug" is exactly the problem you'd expect to develop after swimming in it. To rule the water out, you'd need evidence that, say, the guy ate at a restaurant with several other people who didn't go swimming, and they got sick too.
Why not just compare the incidence of sickness at the swimming event vs other triathlon swimming events and see if 2(or whatever the number of competitors affected was) is abnormal and work from there?
Meanwhile:
> Paris officials say they have taken several measures to ensure swimmers can safely enjoy the long-anticipated reopening, including daily water pollution testing and implementing a swim test for bathers. The water quality is "exceptional", said Marc Guillaume, the prefect for the Ile-de-France region that includes Paris. "We are monitoring two bacteria, E. coli and enterococci, and for one we are ten times below the thresholds and for the other more than 25 times below," he said.
let him swim in it. that's the real test. if the official claims it's exceptional then surely it's not a problem for him.
He did last year, alongside mayor Hidalgo and others, such as Tony Estanguet, who is a former athlete and was overseeing the olympics and the minister for sports.
Article in French: https://www.franceinfo.fr/les-jeux-olympiques/paris-2024/bai...
People living in houseboats along the river have been swimming in the Seine forever. And every summer, young people, possibly a little drunk, jump into the water as a dare from bridges near Notre-Dame.
But yes, this is more mainstream and open to all so it's kind of big news.
I live on a houseboat just after paris in Meudon, facing Boulogne, we go paddle and swiming with the kids since they are 5 years old. The thing is to avoid going to the river the days after big rains. It is a very pleasant area along the Saint Germain Island (bras mort de l’Île Saint Germain)
The news is that it's now allowed / legal
Just beware of the sharks
Bull sharks are known to swim 4000km inland (even 1100km in US).
There are around 8 to 10 major dams or weirs between the ocean and Paris.
Sharks only eat like once or twice a week and are very shy creatures, so not much to worry about. You're more likely to be killed by a coconut.
It was a joke about a silly movie premise
That comment might also have been a joke, ironically and intentionally missing the point that perhaps there aren’t that many sharks in the Seine.
One could be carried there
Oh my.
“Based on: An original idea”
I suppose so…
it's entertainment, not science. if it fulfills that purpose then it's good. nothing else required.
I mean, you need some plausibility to the imaginative leap. It can be crazy but as long as it doesn't disturb the audience's suspension of disbelief, you're fine, and that's a strange line.
There's nothing wrong with mocking the premise of this movie; I saw it and it deserves no defense.
The water is "so clean" that you have mandatory showers before going in... But it's France, so how would you live without pointless regulations?
Isn't a shower before swimming in a public pool a universal thing? It's always required in France.
People wear all sorts of oils and perfumes and deodorants that should be washed off before swimming.
it's a river. Couple hundred people swimming in it with deodorants is meaningless.
I'd say it's the same rules as any other (swimmable) river in France, from the big to the small. Maybe it'd make more sense just for smaller rivers, but where do you draw the line? Like it's easier and simpler to just use the same set of rules
Maybe that was the initial thought? It’s a river, a handful of homes emptying sewage there is meaningless. And centuries later, here we are.
I was dubious so did a fact check, and it is indeed necessary! Not sure what the reasoning is, I wonder if it's some rule about public swimming which was originally created only for pools? Or maybe there are some wildlife concerns with certain lotions/etc getting in the water.
> Y a-t-il des douches ? > > Oui ! Chaque site de baignade propose des douches – obligatoires avant d’aller se baigner –, un accès à des toilettes, un poste de secours ainsi que des espaces pour s’asseoir et profiter du soleil.
https://www.paris.fr/pages/baignade-en-seine-toutes-les-ques...
Bonne chance!
Good luck!