SEINE & SENSIBILITY

France says, let the games begin

On June 9, when President Emannuel Macron, 46, ordered snap polls for the 577 seats of the National Assembly, the most acerbic criticism came from the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, 65, who accused him of 'spoiling the mood of the nation when preparations were peaking for the 2024 Summer Olympics.

She warned of riots and worse.

However, she appears to have been proved wrong by most French people, who are all ready to watch, along with milions of people the world over, the inaugural ceremony which will unfold on Friday.

The opening ceremony involves a six-kilometre grand procession of participants down the Seine with over 10,000 athletes on about 100 boats gliding through Paris, passing landmarks like Notre Dame, Pont des Arts, and Pont Neuf.

In mid-June, when the waters of the Seine were tested, it was found that the level of E. coli was ten times the acceptable levels. The French cringed at this national shame. But the authorities said a large rainwater storage trough and the July sunshine would take care of bacteria. And this is what appears to have happened because open-water swimming and triathlon events will be held in the Seine more than 100 years after swimming was banned in the iconic river.