Paris: city hall opens swimming in Canal Saint-Martin ahead of new heatwave

Paris deputy mayor Emmanuel Grégoire has announced that, from this Wednesday, swimming will be permitted in the Canal Saint-Martin under lifeguard supervision. Even before summer has arrived, France is bracing for its second heatwave, just a few weeks after the episode in May that smashed numerous records across half the country. "A heatwave will gradually take hold across the country this week", warned Christelle Robert of the national weather service, Météo-France. In Paris, temperatures are expected to reach 40 °C on Sunday 21 and Monday 22 June. To help people in the capital cope better with this spell of extreme heat, Paris city hall has decided to allow swimming in a 100-metre section of the Canal Saint-Martin from this Wednesday 17 June, between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. City hall had already announced that this stretch of the canal would be open for swimming every Wednesday and Sunday from Monday 6 July to Monday 7 September. It will now be possible "throughout any heatwave", announced mayor Emmanuel Grégoire. "There will be a designated swimming area on the Canal Saint-Martin, with lifeguards on duty", the mayor said in a video posted on his social media accounts. "Allow" rather than "ban" This early opening of swimming in the Canal Saint-Martin was decided after an assessment carried out by Paris city hall. "A month ago, Paris went through a heatwave. We spent a huge amount of effort stopping young people from swimming when it was 40 °C", the mayor goes on to say in his video. "And that way of thinking was really absurd. Rather than spending energy pulling them out of the water, I preferred to work on allowing them to swim safely." "So over the past month we have mobilised a great deal [...] to reverse the logic, so that swimming is allowed" under certain conditions, "rather than banned", he explained at a press briefing. Alexandra Cordebard, mayor of the capital’s 10th district, said that opening the canal for swimming earlier than planned represented "a new way of tackling climate change and adapting the city". After the controversy over banned swimming last month, "it was our responsibility to make sure [those swimmers] were safe", the district’s mayor also stressed. Strict safety rules Like Alexandra Cordebard, Emmanuel Grégoire stressed that despite the presence of lifeguards, strict rules still apply in the stretch of the Canal Saint-Martin where swimming is allowed. "In all areas where it is not authorised, [swimming] will remain prohibited", the capital’s mayor initially explained. "Secondly, even though I can see this is proving a bit difficult, jumping from the footbridges is strictly forbidden", he added. Water quality, tested and monitored by the regional health agency, will remain the key condition for the basin to be opened to swimmers. Later in the summer, swimmers will also be able to cool off at designated spots along the Seine, after it was reopened for bathing last summer for the first time in a century. Paris has invested more than one billion euros (1.15 billion dollars) to make the water clean enough for use during the 2024 Olympic Games. More frequent heatwaves Studies and scientific bodies are unanimous: heatwaves in Europe are becoming more frequent as a result of climate change. Météo-France points out that of the 51 heatwaves recorded nationwide since 1947, 34 have occurred since 2000 and 26 since 2011. Global average temperatures are likely to stay at record or near-record levels this year and over the following four years, the United Nations has warned.