Paris Olympics 2024: The great Seine cleanup

Olympics Games in Paris: Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo jumps into the Seine to prove it's clean for the 2024 Olympics.

Estimated to have cost a whopping $1.5 billion, the cleanup of the Seine river that flows through Paris is among the costliest projects the city has undertaken as it gears to host Summer Olympics for the third time.  

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Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Wednesday jumped into the Seine in the city to prove that it is clean enough for open water swimming events at the 2024 Paris Olympics, scheduled to start on July 26. 

Ms. Hidalgo jumped into the river wearing a wetsuit and goggles, to showcase the river’s cleanliness as Paris gears up to host the international sporting event. 

BBC journalist Hugh Schofield followed, but without a wetsuit. Gulping a mouthful of the river water as he jumped in, Mr. Schofield said, “It tastes fine.”

“Water’s gorgeous...a bit murky. But, it feels good,” he said.

A sentiment that has echoed through art, literature, and pop culture is that Paris is a river city. “The evolution of Paris and its history can be seen from the River Seine,” UNESCO’s World Heritage Conservation notes. Over centuries and ages of development, sites and monuments that have been built on the banks of the Seine have come to define Paris – from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and the Sainte Chapelle in the Middle Ages, to Pont Neuf during the French Renaissance, from the Marais and the Ile-Saint-Louis neighbourhoods of 17th and 18th centuries, to the Palais de Louvre, the Invalides, the Monnaie, and the most famous of all – the Eiffel Tower.