During the inauguration of the Olympic Village for the Paris 2024 Games, Emmanuel Macron promised on Thursday to go swimming in the Seine. “And how! Yes I will go,” replied the head of state to journalists on site. “But I’m not going to give you the date, you might be there,” he quipped.
Emmanuel Macron promised Thursday to go swimming in the Seine, a possibility which will be offered to Ile-de-France residents in the summer of 2025 and will constitute “an important legacy” of the Olympic Games. “And how! Yes I will go,” Emmanuel Macron responded to journalists. “But I’m not going to give you the date, you might be there,” he joked on the occasion of the inauguration of the Olympic Village for the Paris Games.
Triathlon and open water swimming events planned in the Seine
The Olympic Games must inaugurate the reunion of swimming with the Seine: the triathlon and open water swimming events will start from the Alexandre-III bridge which connects the Grand Palais to the Invalides. The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo indicated at the beginning of January that she would swim in the Seine in July, just before the Olympics and a year before the opening of three swimming areas in the river in Paris: Bercy, Grenelle and between the Saint-Louis Island and the Marais.
“For the Ile-de-France residents, we will have the river and the Marne which will also have changed their face and use,” rejoiced the Head of State, referring to “the important legacies” left by the Olympic Games in terms of developments. . “For the Seine and the Marne, there has been an extraordinary investment that has been made,” he said. Since 2016, the State and local authorities in Ile-de-France have invested around 1.4 billion euros to make the Seine and the Marne, its main tributary, swimmable.