in flood, the color of the Seine turns brown

The Seine has taken on brown hues in recent days. If color is not synonymous with dirt, a few months before the Olympic Games, the picture is very bad and, above all, the challenge of swimming there is still far from won.

Let’s be honest, the waters of the Seine are never really turquoise blue, but it’s true that these last few days, at the beginning of March, they were even browner than usual. But let’s admit, a brown river is nothing more common during periods of flooding, after heavy rains. Finally, usual rains for the season and a very ordinary flood. Very far from the great flood of 1910, when the iron lady found herself with her feet in the water and the deputies went by boat to the Palais Bourbon.

So obviously, the color brown does not necessarily mean dirt. However, a few months before the Olympic Games, the picture is very bad. Because it is soon time for the big plunge for the athletes and for the mayor of the capital who is committed to ensuring that Parisians (at least those who want to) can swim in the uncertain and obscure waters of the Seine. Bathing in a river that has been prohibited for swimming for 100 years, Jacques Chirac, before Anne Hidalgo and Emmanuel Macron, had already promised.

Some 360 ​​tonnes of waste, 2 million m3 of wastewater

Whatever the shade of brown, on July 26, the day of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, there is no guarantee that it will be possible to take the plunge, despite the billion and a half euros invested by the state. And despite the construction of a giant reservoir capable of storing 46 million liters of rainwater which will be transported through a tunnel under the Austerlitz station, we are heading to a wastewater treatment plant. But will this be enough to stem the risks linked to contamination?

Each year, 360 tonnes of waste, such as scooters, televisions and even safes, are removed from the Seine and two million cubic meters of waste and domestic water are dumped into its bed. But you never know, the cities of Zurich and Munich have succeeded in cleaning up their rivers. So perhaps one day the Seine will be more than a wastewater conduit or a navigation route. After all, it is not forbidden to dream, since, as Apollinaire wrote, under the Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine and our loves, and sometimes, it seems, joy comes after sorrow.