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The Guardian view on reclaiming the Seine: hope for 21st century rivers | Editorial | The Guardian

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Paris 2024 has pointed the way towards a brighter future for urban waterways in post-industrial cities I t was an American modernist poet who captured best the ancient, elemental status of rivers. In one of his best-loved poems, Wallace Stevens celebrated their “third commonness with light and air / A curriculum, a vigor, a local abstraction”. Life-supporting and place-defining, the great rivers of the world have nurtured and sustained our cities, but more latterly been blighted by the toxic legacy of industrialisation. The successful staging of Olympic events in a cleaned-up River Seine therefore deserves to be seen as a social and environmental milestone, as well as a sporting one. The remarkable spectacle of triathlon competitors diving from the Pont Alexandre III, as the Eiffel Tower loomed large on a blue-skied summer morning, will take some beating as a signature image of Paris 2024. Given that intense summer rainstorms almost derailed the event, generating contaminated overflow

The women's individual triathlon in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at Pont Alexandre III. Photograph: Getty Images View image in fullscreen The women's individual triathlon in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at Pont Alexandre III. Photograph: Getty Images Opinion Rivers This article is more than 1 year old The Guardian view on reclaiming the Seine: hope for 21st century rivers This article is more than 1 year old Editorial Paris 2024 has pointed the way towards a brighter future for urban waterways in post-industrial cities Fri 2 Aug 2024 13.25 EDT Last modified on Wed 2 Apr 2025 10.07 EDT Share I

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