The Seine star of the summer again in Paris

PARIS, July 6 — The Seine, which played a starring role in the 2024 Paris Olympics, again takes centre stage in the capital this summer with the opening of three bathing sites.

Here are things you need to know about the storied waterway.

From Vikings to D-Day

From wars to revolutions, most of the seismic events in French history have played out along the banks of the 775-kilometre-long Seine.

The Vikings travelled up the river on their longboats in the 9th century, torching Rouen in 841 and later besieging Paris.

In 1944, Allied forces bombed most of the bridges downstream of Nazi-occupied Paris to prepare the ground for the D-Day landings which led to the liberation of western Europe.

Monet’s muse

French impressionist master Claude Monet spent his life painting the river from different viewpoints.

Hollywood starlet Doris Day, British rock singer Marianne Faithfull and US crooner Dean Martin all sang about it.

And during one of her raging rows with her songwriter partner Serge Gainsbourg, late singer and actress Jane Birkin jumped into it.

The Seine has long inspired artists, authors, musicians... as well as legions of couples who have sworn their undying love by chaining personalised padlocks to the bridges of Paris.

Barging ahead

Taking a cruise on the Seine is on most visitors’ bucket lists, but the Seine is also a working river, with around 20 million tonnes of goods transported on France’s second-busiest river each year—the equivalent of about 800,000 lorry-loads.

Bathing again

Swimming in the Seine, which was all the rage in the 17th century when people used to dive in naked, has been banned since 1923 for health and safety reasons.

France has invested heavily to ensure the water will be safe for the public to swim in this summer.

Days before the 2024 Olympic Games began Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo dove into the Seine in front of journalists from around the world.

The open-water swimming events and triathlon took place there.

From July 5, the public will be able to access three bathing sites at bras Marie in the heart of the historic centre, the Grenelle district in the west of Paris, as well as Bercy in the east.

As the water is quite shallow people will not be allowed to dive in.

Mind the python

Cleaning up the Seine also has its macabre side. Between 50 and 60 corpses a year are fished out of the water.

Dredging of the river in recent years has also come up with voodoo dolls with pins stuck in them, a (dead) three-metre-long python, an artillery shell dating back to the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and the trophy of the Six Nations rugby tournament, dropped during a victory party on the river after France’s win in 2022. — AFP