Swimming in the Seine in Paris: from Chirac to Hidalgo, a forty-year-old promise

On the occasion of a release of some 5,000 pike into Parisian waters, the future President of the Republic sets a date: “In five years, we will be able to swim there again and I will be the first to do so.” Brice Lalonde, then Secretary of State for the Environment, replies not without irony: “You’re welcome to let Jacques Chirac swim in the Seine. I’ll come with the towels and the antibiotics…”