Joyful Parisians take a historic plunge into the Seine after 100 years
Public swimming was allowed in designated areas of the Seine, including two newly built wooden decks near the Eiffel Tower and the Île Saint-Louis in central Paris. Before sunrise, a municipal officer skimmed away the last few patches of algae with a fishnet. Soon after, a line of eager Parisians formed, towels in hand, waiting for their chance to jump in.
Woos and cries of joy echoed across the riverbanks as the first swimmers entered the emerald-green water.
Every swimmer wore a bright yellow lifebuoy tied around their waist, part of strict safety measures enforced by a dozen lifeguards in high-visibility vests. The current was weak, just enough to tug gently at their limbs — a reminder that this is still a living, urban river.
'It's so nice to swim in the heart of the city, especially with the high temperatures we've been having lately,' said Amine Hocini, a 25-year-old construction worker from Paris. 'I'm surprised because I thought it was going to be cooler and in fact, it's much warmer than I thought.'
The return to swimming follows a 1.4 billion euro ($1.5 billion) cleanup project tied to last year's Olympics. Officials now say the Seine meets European water quality standards on most days. Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who already took a dip last year, was there Saturday morning, holding up a transparent bottle filled with river water as a show of confidence. Environmental authorities confirmed bacteria levels were well below official thresholds.
Swimming in the Seine had been illegal since 1923, with a few exceptions, due to pollution and risks posed by river navigation. Taking a dip outside bathing areas is still banned for safety reasons.
From the deck, tourists and morning joggers stopped to watch. Some applauded as swimmers climbed up the steel ladders, grinning and dripping. Others, like François Fournier, remained skeptical.
'I won't risk it quite frankly,' said Fournier, who lives atop the riverbanks and observed the scene from a bridge above. 'I've seen things you can't imagine floating in the Seine, so I'll wait for it to be really squeaky clean.'
Floating debris still bobbed here and there — a stray leaf, a plastic wrapper — but the smell was barely noticeable: no strong sewage odor, just an earthy, river-like scent.
'This is so chic, to swim in the Seine, next to Île Saint-Louis,' said Lucile Woodward, 43, a resident. 'There are some apprehensions, of course, any time you go to swim somewhere, but I think this is one of the most tested areas in the whole world now. I don't think the town hall can allow herself to have any problems.'
She added with a laugh: 'My skin is OK.'
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'The speed of the game is not the same, everything becomes very slow,' said Enzo Fernandez ahead of the final. 'Let's hope that next year they change the schedule,' he continued, protecting players and providing fans with a 'beautiful and attractive football spectacle.' Following his side's quarterfinal defeat against Real Madrid in 90°F afternoon heat, Borussia Dortmund manager Niko Kovac echoed this sentiment by suggesting evening kick-offs would raise the intensity of matches 'much higher.' On June 21, Dortmund subs watched the first half of their match against Mamelodi Sundowns from inside the locker room to avoid the blazing midday 90°F heat in Cincinnati, Ohio, conditions Kovac likened to a sauna. Almost 50% of Club World Cup matches were scheduled at either noon or 3:00 p.m. FIFPRO WBGT estimates shared with TIME, however, determined that if World Cup matches are played during the afternoon in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Miami, and Monterrey, there would be an 'extremely high risk' of heat-stress injury. To estimate the WBGT in 2026 World Cup host locations during an average summer, Queen's University Belfast published a study in January 2025 that used meteorological data from 2003-2022. The researchers found that in June and July—the same period that the World Cup will take place—average temperatures in 14 out of 16 host cities experienced afternoon temperatures that frequently exceeded 82.4°F, while six cities typically exceeded the 89.6°F threshold. Beyond changing the schedule, other solutions like cooling vests and cold-water immersion are becoming more common. 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This 'scheduling Tetris,' as Orr describes, is even more complex after FIFA expanded the World Cup from 32 to 48 teams, meaning 104 matches instead of 64 and many times more fans. The Club World Cup isn't the first time that extreme weather has prompted schedule-change requests. At the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, 65% of matches were scheduled to kick off at 12:00 p.m. despite temperatures exceeding 100°F. Before leading Argentina to glory, Diego Maradona said at the time: 'It should be part of the rules once and for all that the organizers should take the soccer players into account. Without us, there would be no spectacular. We are the indispensable ingredient to the World Cup. At least the hours of the games should be set to the time in which we play best, not when there is the most heat.' Four decades later, the reality of climate change has kicked in and FIFA's critics are hoping the governing body adapts faster to the rising threat of extreme heat. FIFPRO's Marchi said in the statement shared with TIME that the 'extremely hot' periods Club World Cup matches were played in are 'unacceptable conditions' that 'cannot be allowed to happen again under any circumstances' at the World Cup, demanding that FIFA puts players 'at the heart of every decision.' In FIFPRO's June 30 media briefing, the union's general secretary Alex Phillips said FIFA is 'likely to be more flexible' over World Cup kick-off times after seeing the effects of extreme heat on the Club World Cup, but added that 'we have absolutely no power to force them to.'
