Paris 2024: Will the River Seine be Olympic-ready? • FRANCE 24 English

Paris 2024: Will the River Seine be Olympic-ready? • FRANCE 24 English

[Music] the sen paris’s iconic River its banks are packed with musty monuments the Lou nraam the Eiffel Tower throughout history the sen has shaped local life from preh historic times until now and it’s set to play a starring role at this Summer’s Olympic Games authorities are racing to boost security curb pollution and keep visitors entertained but what Legacy will the games leave on the [Music] sen hello and welcome to this edition of France and focus I’m Aurora D we are in the heart of Paris where the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games will take place more than 10,000 athletes will sail 6 kilm along the river sen in a boat parade concerts fireworks it’s the first time ever that an opening ceremony takes place outside a stadium and more than 300,000 fans are expected to flock to the river banks to catch a glimpse of it some lucky residents will be in the front row while staying at home Jean Marie has lived on his house Boo for 18 years is he’ll watch the opening ceremony from his rooftop for free whilst others will pay nearly €3,000 for a ticket we’re incredibly lucky the last time the games were held in Paris was in 1924 I don’t think I’ll experience such a ceremony again we’re in an absolutely magical place here right by the sh like him around 200 of his neighbors will enjoy the show from their house boats in a highly monitored area we’re just Upstream from the Concord bridge in the middle of the gray Zone there’ll be huge traffic restrictions even on ferto by bike will’ll need special passes there’ll even be bomb squads checking some of the boats tight security and new environmental measures have been put in place Jean Marie had to renovate his boat to stop polluting the river ahead of the games but since the Olympic law we now hooked up to the City sewers so the Wastewater is pumped from the engine room behind me into a terminal over there and that’s linked to the city’s main sewage system in all 250 house boat owners have had to go green paying 10 to 20,000 for the renovations this is all part of a bigger project that started 8 years ago it’s dubbed the swimming plan bathing in the sen has been banned for a 100 years because of dangerous pollution levels but French authorities want to make it swimmable Again by next year 1.4 billion euros have been forked out to upgrade the sewage system and to prevent it from overflowing when the weather’s bad a tank has been built to collect 20 Olympic siiz swimming pools worth of excess [Music] rain Michel rioto you’re the honorary president of France nature environment do you think that the oal basin is enough to curb pollution in the river I don’t think the small Basin they built which is 50,000 Square met is enough to handle the excess waste water from Paris if there’s a heavy storm say more than 10 mm of rain that’s 1 million cubic M of water falling on Paris which is 70% impermeable so you’ll have about 700,000 met going back into the sewers there’s also a problem with one of the treatment plants uh just above Paris that rejects unclean water it’s been treated but it still remains unclean what can we do um to disinfect it properly there are two water treatment plants Upstream they discharge waste water that they’ve treated but there’s still a lot of germs in it the limit is 900 bacteria per 100 milliliters that’s the standard for safe swimming so they need to use techniques like ultraviolet light at one of the plants for the other plant they’ll use a chemical process with performic acid that releases active oxygen and destroys all the organic matter this will take place right outside the plant in a canal 500 to 600 M long before reaching the sen so the product will be deactivated before it gets to the river making it less dangerous for the ecosystem you’re a former microbiologist what are the dangers of swimming in this type of water today what kind of bacteria can we find in there you can get a lot of diarrhea and even worse because on top of the bacteria you also get viruses the hepatitis A virus for example is extremely toxic and can lead to liver cancer some other NOS such as Surf Rider took measurements last year and showed that some parts of the sen are still too polluted swimming has been banned for a century now here in in Paris do you think that this dream will be achievable by 2025 it’s a dream I think it’s a beautiful dream but the authorities the City of Paris need to show us the data the prefect of Paris told me he would be transparent that we would have all the information well we’re still waiting for it would you take a swim in the in the sun on the 26th of July no no I won’t be swimming in it just a few weeks before the Olympics the water doesn’t seem clean to us either but French authorities remain optimistic Mar the subprefect in charge of the Olympic Games here in Paris namely in charge of the swimming plan many athletes are worried about the quality of the water British swimmers for example have said that they will get vaccinated for typhoid and hepatitis A what will you do if the water is not up to standards this is a scenario we’ve prepared for with the Olympic organizing committee and the international federations we’ve set aside extra days for rescheduling so for instance if test results are no good on the morning of an event the event will simply be held the next day or the following day so there’s a schedule in place that will be communicated to the athletes so they can anticipate any delays the water in the Senate is tested regularly I’m told but green activists have said that the French government is not being transparent enough with the results what do you say to those accusations the test results will be communicated when the time is right they’ll be shared specifically at the time of the competitions so that the athletes know the water quality at that specific moment why wait until the last minute before you communicate on these results the conditions will change between now and the events so we’re waiting to see the real conditions before communicating anything thank you very much the aim is to reduce pollution by 75% by this summer an ecological transition is in full swing and a cultural one [Music] too Bernard L you are specialized in the history of the sen you’ve just written a book about it if we go back to the 16th century the sen really played a central part in people’s lives um tell us how we indeed the sen was a Social Hub everyone came here to get their groceries the caves weren’t straight like now they were gentle slopes back then parisians lived by the S they were in harmony with it the river banks consisted in a series of ports the port where you could find wood the Apple Port the grain Port the hay port and so on parans came to the S every day for many reasons gilds came to tan leather butchers would even come to slaughter animals on the banks so there were areas more or less accepted by parisians places of communal life it was a major social spot and how did things evolve at the end of the 18th century by the late 18th century things changed because paris’s population had exploded Paris was the largest city in Europe and it was primarily supplied by the sen more and more boats came because the demand grew Paris then became a major industral city and parisians abandoned the docks they no longer came for food which was then brought by rail the major markets Le Al were closer to train stations than the sen so people no longer had a purpose to go to the Sen when they did return it was for coal and other unpleasant things it smelled bad and was very polluted so parisians distance themselves from the S and at what point do the parisians come back to the river banks I pinpoint this to 1975 when the new president valer Jang put a stop to Pomp’s plan to further develop roads by the river obviously when you put a highway along the banks you cut the link between locals and the sen I call this Flur urbanization or the revitalization of the riverfront echoing the reurbanization of the 60s when parisians went to the countryside to explore Rural Life now they’re coming back to the Banks to ReDiscover the rivers and now with the Olympic Games how do you think that they’re going to change things for parisians it’s going to be an extraordinary and very symbolic moment highlighting the s’s place and its rediscovery we’ve always used the sen for festivities from medieval jousting to hosting heads of state during the Fourth Republic now the symbol is incredibly powerful thank you very much thank you very much and that brings us to the end of the show thank you for watching I personally can’t wait to take a splash in the riverend uh but it might take a bit more time for that dream to finally come true thanks for watching take care [Music]

In this week’s show we take a deep dive into the Seine, to find out how Paris’s river is preparing for the 2024 Olympics. We see how authorities are racing against time to boost security, curb pollution and keep visitors entertained. With just a few weeks to go before the opening ceremony, one question remains: will the Seine actually be swimmable?  

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