36 years after Jacques Chirac’s promise, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a dip in the Seine on Wednesday, nine days before the start of the Olympic Games.
:quality(50)/2023/07/23/64bcfa33e5011_gabriel-rond.png)
Published
Reading time: 4 min
:quality(50)/2024/07/17/000-364d84j-6697a10ebf3c6169363981.jpg)
Three boats with cameras from the French and American press, several dozen journalists accredited in the security perimeter on the quay and at least as many outside… If the commitment was to be honored for more than six months, the arrangements around Anne Hidalgo’s swim in the Seine, Wednesday July 17, quickly seemed excessive when the mayor of Paris came out of the water after four minutes, watch in hand, shortly before 10 a.m.
Anne Hidalgo in the Seine
.
(France info)
Nine days before the Olympic Games, the mayor covered, in a wetsuit, the hundred meters that separated a platform, installed for the occasion at the level of the Quai des Célestins, in the 4th arrondissement of the capital, from a pontoon built on the Bras Marie of the river. A promise kept under the sun, despite the successive postponements linked to the flow of the Seine and then to the legislative elections, in the company of Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee (Cojop), and the prefect of the Île-de-France region, Marc Guillaume.
We’ll come back to talking about a dive. Only the deputy for sports at the town hall, Pierre Rabadan, risked taking the plunge among the officials. The rest of the troupe opted for the more classic entrance via the ladder. Enough to disappoint the onlookers, who fell back on the mastered crawl of the PS elected official to turn into judges like at the Olympics. “Well, if it was so fast, it’s also because she swam with the current! The good swimmers behind her are treading water when they go backwards.”notes Xavier, pointing to the thirty or so other invited bathers playing with a water polo ball.
:quality(50)/2024/07/17/img-9778-66979eb193690633903670.jpg)
“I live nearby so I came to seeexplains Jessica, a young American who has recently started working in France. It still feels like it’s all very orchestrated. I don’t think it makes me want to dive in.” “It’s really an opportunity to put on a show: ‘look what we’ve done, what we’re capable of'”joins Alban, 21. Who raises his eyebrows when his friend Emile, more cheerful and who dragged him to the banks of the Seine this Wednesday, recognizes that it is a device “a bit contradictory with the simplicity of the idea of swimming”.
The moment, less “ridiculous” just as the slip of the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra four days earlier under the Pont des Invalides, obviously has a strong political stake. “They’re waiting for a hiccup”jokes Christophe, a driver for Japanese television, pointing to his clients. “In truth, there is nothing exceptional about this little swim, everything is going well, especially since there is all the security around”, adds this regular of “splashes” in the Seine upstream from Paris.
The municipal police and the security personnel of the town hall were making sure that there were no “no banner” or other political message displayed from the Sully bridge before swimming in water around 20°C.I’m thinking of Jacques Chirac today, I think he really wanted to swim in the Seine. [il en avait fait une promesse en 1988 alors qu’il était maire de Paris, sans la tenir] and you see, sometimes it takes a little while”rejoices Anne Hidalgo as she dries herself off.
“Ah, is she done paddling?”asks Mélanie at the same time on the opposite bank, where a crowd filled with more photographers than passers-by had gathered.I didn’t see anything at all and I don’t understand why they banned access to the platform. Anne Hidalgo wanted to advertise, it failed since there are only a small number of insiders and guests who are there and the public didn’t see much,” continues this retiree, before confiding that she has always “doubts about water quality”.
:quality(50)/2024/07/17/dsc-0060-1-6697a04424bbc518318166.jpg)
Didier, 65, is delighted to have been able to attend “this strong symbol” but he also admits that he wants to wait for the future results of the analysis of the waters of the Seine to go swimming there, as should be the case from 2025. “I’m not a fan of the Olympic Games. For me it’s a huge money machine, but for Paris it’s fantastic. Anne Hidalgo said she would go and I think that if that hadn’t been the case, she would have been attacked,” says this Parisian, who came especially by bike.
Barely a quarter of an hour after the mayor finished her bath, the locals and tourists passing by had cleared out and only the press was left to follow the end of the festivities. For the public, it was now a matter of waiting for the triathlon and open water swimming events during the Olympic fortnight to see much more spectacular exploits.