Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has fulfilled a promise to swim in the Seine in a bid to show it is clean ahead of the Summer Olympics.
The swim took place on Wednesday morning along a stretch of the river that passes by Paris’ City Hall and the Notre Dame Cathedral.
Ms Hidalgo was joined by Tony Estanguet, head of the Paris 2024 Games, and Marc Guillaume, the prefect of the Paris region.
The official made a pledge in January to swim in the river to highlight its improved cleanliness. French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, also swam in the Seine on Saturday wearing a full-body suit.
Ms Hidalgo had initially planned to swim in the Seine in June, but it was delayed due to the calling of snap Parliamentary elections.
On the initial date, the hashtag ”jechiedanslaSeine” or “I’m pooping in the Seine” trended on social media as some threatened to protest the Olympics by defecating upstream.
The Summer Games will kick off on July 26 with a lavish open-air ceremony that includes an athletes' parade on boats on the Seine.
Since 2015, organisers have invested millions of pounds to prepare the Seine for the Olympics and to ensure Parisians have a cleaner river in the years after the Games.
The plan included constructing a giant underground water storage basin in central Paris, renovating sewer infrastructure, and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.
However, concerns over the Seine’s flow and pollution levels have persisted, prompting daily water quality tests by the monitoring group Eau de Paris.
Results in early June indicated unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria, but this appears to have improved.
Despite being a recurring promise among politicians, swimming in the Seine has been banned for over a century.
Jacques Chirac, the former French president, made a similar pledge in 1988 when he was Paris mayor, but it never came to pass.
The Seine will host several open water swimming events during the Games, including marathon swimming at the Olympic Games and the swimming legs of the Olympic and Paralympic triathlons.
