After being repeatedly postponed, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo finally took a dip in the Seine on Wednesday morning, nine days before the Olympic Games and the events planned in the river.
The president of the Olympic Games organizing committee Tony Estanguet and the prefect of Ile-de-France Marc Guillaume also donned the suit before diving. The suspense remains, however, over whether the events will take place, even though the bacteriological state of the river has improved since the end of June and the flow of the river, still high for the season, continues to drop (around 375 m3/second on Wednesday morning).
The Minister of Sports and Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, had bathed in the Seine on Saturday morning, ahead of the trio by a few days.
Highly anticipated since Anne Hidalgo made the promise, the event took place from 8:30 a.m. on the Bras Marie, between the Saint-Paul district and the Île Saint-Louis. It was already there, in the summer of 2023, that open water swimmers set off, accompanied by two of the mayor’s deputies. The mayor of Paris had then announced the three future Parisian bathing sites planned from 2025.
What about Emmanuel Macron?
Emmanuel Macron, who had assured at the end of February that he would swim in the river without specifying the date, had “refused” the mayor’s invitation for June 23, according to her entourage. And for this Wednesday morning? “I think he has a week with other priorities,” Amélie Oudéa-Castéra had replied on Monday, in reference to the political situation in the country.
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