The Paris Olympics are coming up, as you know, unless you're living in a cave, and I wanted to bring up the thorny subject of the Seine and, above all, its cleanliness. Welcome to this episode of Learn French vocabulary with the news.
You know the Seine, of course! It's the river that runs through Paris and much of France. It's along the Seine that tourists stroll, it's on the Seine that the bateaux-mouches sail. In short, just like certain monuments, the Seine is a symbol of Parisian life. For the Olympic Games, it will be transformed into a swimming pool. Yes, a swimming pool.
Bathing in the Seine has been a constant over the years. In the Middle Ages, there was nothing to prohibit it, and people bathed in the simplest of garb, i.e., completely naked. Then, in 1783, bathing was totally banned for reasons of decency.
Believe it or not, the end of the 19th century saw the return not only of bathing, but also of floating pools fixed to the banks. It was once again possible to swim in them. The controversy was not about bathing as such, but about the health risks involved, which were not new.
Here's an excerpt from Le Figaro in 1889: "Pouah! It's a maceration of dead things that this foul river where the most refined race in the universe unconsciously drinks".
We were at the height of the hygienic era, and health became a public service issue. Despite all this, the waters crossing Paris remained highly contaminated. Today, it's all anyone can talk about: will swimmers be able to swim in the Seine? This is the promise made by Madame Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, and Emmanuel Macron. But another politician had dreamed of it. In 1990, Jacques Chirac, mayor of the City of Light, promised to bathe in the river to prove that it was clean. Of course, it never happened. But, miraculously, the Minister of Sport and the Mayor of Paris kept their promise and took a dip. It's probably one of the few promises they've kept in their careers.
As for cleanliness, that's another story. Can you really clean a river? Can we really base ourselves on past practices, knowing that back then there wasn't the same scientific knowledge or the same state of urban planning?
The readings obtained by Médiapart clearly show that the quality of the water is not up to scratch, and certainly won't be for the games. Most worrying of all, the concentration of ecoli bacteria is above the limit. Still, it's good to see that Parisians are amused by the show, especially the memes. What do you think of all this? Would you swim in the Seine?
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