Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo is “hoping to use the Paris 2024 Olympic bid to ‘accelerate’ her municipal projects,” according to Bertrand Gréco of LE JOURNAL DU DIMANCHE. Hidalgo will present an “action plan” to the Council of Paris on May 17 and 18. The document is comprised of 43 measures “that will be implemented in the next eight years, with a focus on the Games candidature,” which the city will find out if it wins in Sept. ’17. Hidalgo said, “The idea is to have a candidature that is useful for Parisians.” The most “spectacular” measures include the creation of an “Olympic Line” that will traverse Paris east to west, on the right bank of the Seine. The light-rail tram would run the length of the Seine, from Hauts-de-Seine in the west to Val-de-Marne in the east. In the action plan, Hidalgo and Paris Sports Tourism Deputy Mayor Jean-François Martins reaffirmed their “desire to create ‘swimming zones’ for the general public in the river and the cleaned canals” (LE JDD, 5/8). 20 MINUTES reported Hidalgo is committed to “improving the sanitation level” of the Seine and its canals “in order to allow swimming.” By ’17, Parisians will be able to swim in selected zones and “competitions will be organized in the Seine.” If the Paris 2024 bid is chosen by the Int’l Olympic Committee “the swimming portion of the triathlon and the 10km open water swimming events will be held in the river” (20 MINUTES, 5/8).
