Sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra says that she is “confident” in “achieving the objective of reducing bacteriological pollution of the Seine by 75 percent” after the publication on Monday of an alarming study about the quality of the water in the river where Olympic events are due to be held this summer.

The NGO Surfrider Foundation, which commissioned the study, warned on Monday of the “alarming” state of the waters of the Seine after carrying out a six-month sampling campaign outside the scheduled bathing season.

The Olympic events are the culmination of a long-term effort to clean up the Seine, which has been closed to swimmers since 1923 because of its pollution levels.

Olympic organisers and the city of Paris have set themselves the goal of holding Olympic events in the river this summer, and then opening up the Seine to swimming for members of the public once the Games are over.

It is envisaged that swimming spots will be set up in the summer, similar to the Paris Plage site at Bassin de la Villette, which has a swimming space in the Canal Ourcq every year.  

“We have confidence in the action plan led by the Préfet of Ile-de-France, a very ambitious plan on which we have been working for three years”, said the Minister, questioned by several MPs at a hearing before the Assembly’s Cultural Affairs Committee.

“We shouldn’t measure ahead of time”, she added, detailing the action plan currently underway. “We are confident in our ability to meet the target we have set ourselves of reducing bacteriological pollution in the Seine by 75 percent”, she added.

Paris City Council and the regional préfecture, which head the steering committee for the €1.4 billion plan to make the river swimmable, pointed out on Monday that five major structures designed to ensure a clean Seine in summer would be operational “within a few weeks”.

The Minister also pointed out that “contingency days”, ie postponement days, had been “made available” for the two types of event to be held on the Seine.

The triathlon events (July 30th and 31st and August 5th) and the open-water swimming event, now known as marathon swimming (August 8th and 9th), are still threatened by heavy rains.