People living in houseboats along the river have been swimming in the Seine forever. And every summer, young people, possibly a little drunk, jump into the water as a dare from bridges near Notre-Dame.

But yes, this is more mainstream and open to all so it's kind of big news.

One of the benefits of EU regulations is that they have brought some order to the dumping of raw sewage into rivers and seas. But there is still a lot of work to do.

Local authorities from lots of EU regions generally avoid measuring water quality after rainy days because raw sewage is still often dumped under those conditions.

Even in Basel, where the Rheine is really clean, authorities sometimes advise not to swim.

The water is "so clean" that you have mandatory showers before going in... But it's France, so how would you live without pointless regulations?

For anyone visiting Paris, the sewer museum is definitely a unique experience and worth a visit (although smelly). It gives you a grasp of what a monumental it was to build the sewers back then. You can also see the overflow reservoirs that dump water into the Seine when there is heavy rain (they were talking about the cleanup efforts leading to the Olympics when I was there some years ago).

You know that river was bad if they closed it in 1925.

Commendable they’ve been able to remove the organic toxins, but I’m left wondering about PFAS, pesticides, microplastics etc?