Rogue swimmers reject Seine pollution fears as

2024 Olympians prepare to take the plunge

While the 2024 Olympics will stage events in the Seine river from the ornate
Alexandre III bridge, a proud declaration of the waterway's environmental
renewal, many swimmers in the capital are already defying decades-long bans to
take the plunge.

Swimmers leap into the Seine at Île Saint-Denis in July 2023. © Geoffroy Van der Hasselt, AFP

1. Fears over pollution and safety led to a ban on swimming in the Seine and
the Paris canals in 1923, though application of the rules has been relaxed in
recent years. One group of pioneers calls itself "Les Ourcq Polaires" -- a
pun invoking polar bears and the name of the canal that is a favorite
swimming site, running northeast out of the capital.

2. In five years, none of their swimmers have been fined, said one member,
Laurent Sitbon, and they have been dragged out of the water by police only
once. Thirty years ago, Jacques Chirac, Paris mayor at the time, boasted that
the Seine was becoming a "clean river" and that he would soon go for a
swim -- though he never did.
 3. But the 2024 Olympic Games organizers plan to hold the triathlon and the
open-water swimming events in the Seine, with French authorities investing
1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) to clean up the river. Already pools have
been roped off in the Ourcq canal for the annual Paris Plages summer events
in recent years, and permanent venues for the general public are scheduled to
open in the region by 2025.

4. On the first Sunday in July, the Polaires organized a dip in the Seine.
Swimmers lined the railing on a barge moored at the Ile-Saint-Denis, north
of Paris, where the Paralympic athlete's village is being built. "I can't wait to
swim in the Seine! It's something else than a swimming pool," said one
swimmer, Celine Debunne.

'We've paved the way'

5. At 8 pm, with little traffic on the river, around 20 people took to the water
for a one-hour outing, covering two kilometers in warm water. At 25
degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit), the temperature "is borderline" too high for
a club that has "polar" in its name, said one swimmer, Josue Remoue.

6. They are just downstream from the setting of French artist Georges Seurat's
painting "Bathers at Asniere" from 1884, a time when frolicking in the Seine
was common. "People say, 'You're crazy, you'll get spots'," said Tanguy
Lhomme, who was welcoming swimmers to his barge on the recent Sunday.
"As a result, they treat the Seine like a sewer."

7. Lhomme admits that when he started living on the river in 2017, "it was out
of the question for me to get into it". The club's members go out with
inflatable buoys and in groups, which, along with their designated
lifeguards, explains why they are "tolerated", Sitbon said.

8. "The Seine gets a lot of bad press, like all dark-colored rivers. The color will
never make you dream," said Louis Pelerin, another swimmer. The Paris
police did not respond to requests for comment on their attitude to
swimming in the river.
 9. "It's not the pollution but a control of morals that's at the root of it," said
Benoit Hachet, a Paris sociology professor who had also dived in. After
summer rains wash dirt from paths and roads into the water, the Parisian
authorities post signs banning swimming on the canal banks.

10. "Pollution is always a great pretext and often a great lie", said Sibylle van
der Walt, a German sociologist based in Metz in eastern France, where she
campaigns for wild swimming access. "Whereas in the Nordic countries,
people swim at their own risk, in France the mayor is responsible," Van der
Walt said.

11. In the heat waves of recent summers, growing numbers of Parisians have
taken to cooling off in the canals. "More than the Olympics, it's global
warming," Hachet said. "In ten years, it'll be 40 degrees. People will go in
the water whether it's forbidden or not!" Sitbon also said that attitudes were
changing. "There were only a few of us in 2017. We feel we've paved the
way a little."

Source:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230704-as-olympics-brace-for-seine-dip-rogue-swim
mers-say-water-s-fine

Discussion Questions

1. Would you swim in water that is or looks polluted in order to cool off?

2. Do you think people should be able to swim at their own risk?

3. Do you agree with the statement, “pollution is always a great pretext and
often a great lie”? Why or why not?