French government 'serene' over Seine sewage despite Olympic triathlon disruption

Minister says they have always been transparent over potential risks of using the river to stage events

A resident dives in the Seine after the mayor of Paris swam in the river to demonstrate that it is clean enough to host outdoor swimming events at the Olympics. AFP

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The French government on Monday said it was “confident” that a triathlon swimming competition would take place this week in the Seine as part of the Paris 2024 Summer Games after training was cancelled twice in a row due to high pollution levels.

Sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera pushed back against criticism that the government may be unable to fulfil the promise that athletes would swim in the Seine for the Games, saying that it had always been “transparent” about risks caused by heavy rain.

If the event were forced to be altered, it would be a setback for both Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo and President Emmanuel Macron who have been determined to make the river one of the stars of the Games.

Thousands of athletes paraded along the Seine as part of the opening ceremony on Friday and several swimming competitions are set to take place in its waters.

An investment of €1.4 billion ($1.5 billion) has been put into cleaning the river which has been closed to swimmers for over a century due to pollution.

Cleaning the Seine has been an unfulfilled promise to Parisians for decades which explains the intense media attention directed at Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo when she swam in the Seine on July 17 along with dozens of volunteers.

President Macron has promised to follow suit but the Elysee has declined to give a date. In 1988, Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac famously failed to swim in the river due to high pollution levels. As a legacy of the clean-up effort for the Games, the city has promised that the public will be able to swim in three different sites of the Seine from next summer.

Ms Hidalgo's successful swim was later shown to have taken place in unsafe waters as tests published on Saturday indicated the water was slightly below the standard needed to authorise swimming. Daily water quality tests measure levels of faecal bacteria known as E. coli.

Rain stops play

The first cancellation came on Sunday after days of downpours, including during Friday's open-air opening ceremony. On Saturday, the international governing body World Triathlon said that water quality levels in the Seine “did not provide sufficient guarantees to allow the event to be held.”

“We are absolutely serene about all of this,” Ms Oudea-Castera told C News TV. “We had been extremely transparent about the fact that … the only element that was out of our control were climate variations with long and heavy rainfalls which is exactly what happened on Friday evening and on Saturday.”

“I am confident that the men's triathlon will take place tomorrow,” added Ms Oudea-Castera. “If it's not possible, there are alternative solutions. But we are still following our original plan and we are within the projected time frame that allows us to remain optimistic.”

The women's triathlon is scheduled for Wednesday with distance swimming events set for next week.

Organisers say the backup plan is to postpone the events and, if elevated bacteria levels persist, the swimming portion of the race will be abandoned and the athletes will compete in a duathlon.

The opening ceremony, the first to not take place in a closed stadium, went ahead without major security concerns despite the sabotage of the country's high-speed rail network a few days before the high-profile event.

The River Seine in 1935 and 2023

On Monday, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that the government suspects far-left groups were behind the chaos caused by attacks on signal substations and cables at critical points.

“We have identified the profiles of several people,” Mr Darmanin told France 2 TV, adding that the sabotage bore the hallmarks of far-left groups.

In recent years, France has been targeted in attacks by extremists, but security services have been increasingly concerned about far-left or anarchist militants, who typically oppose the state and capitalism.

Traffic on high-speed lines was expected to be back to normal on Monday.