Par Writing Paris
Published on 19 Jul 22 at 7:18
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Bicycles, scooters, shopping carts and even flat screens: you can find everything in the troubled waters from basin of La Villetteyet a summer swimming spot in Paris where a cleaning and awareness-raising operation took place on Saturday July 16, 2022.
Bikes, scooters and flat screens
For the third time in a quarter of an hour, under the gaze of a fascinated public, on the quay of the Seine in the 19th district, Mehdi Bouriah perceives a sharp blow on the rope between his hands, synonymous with a hold to be extracted. Legs bent, the 23-year-old diver rises in seconds a self-service bicycle rusty and covered in algae.
Just before, his colleague Théo Richomme, in his scuba, had already extracted, moored to a powerful hook, a stroller and a huge screen submerged 3 meters deep.
“A flat screen is the first time,” laughs Mehdi Bouriah while the other diver comes out of the water covered in algae.
You can find everything, it’s really a dump below.
In two hours, the six men from the service provider Fluvial cleaning had already picked up around twenty Vélib’ and five scooters from the basin (800 m by 70), already half filling a 15 m dumpster3.
And yet, “this is not a sector in which we pick up a lot”, assures the president of the specialized company Grégory Pech, according to whom “less frequented places” such as the Ourcq canal in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis), further north, are those that concentrate “the most bicycles”.
Gold statuette or weapons
When they are not scooters, rarer, or more unusual objects: a safe, a statuette of Buddha in gold or a bag of weapons, says Mehdi Bouriah. Place of festive gathering and therefore end of drunken evenings, the basin of La Villette rather gives place to jumping contest on Vélib’according to these fishermen in a hostile environment, who operate from an old oyster barge.
“It’s so surrounded by dirty people that in a month, there will be so many, it’s not going to stay (clean) like that”, plague Sandrine Macé. This 53-year-old resident believes that the perpetrators of these incivilities “unfortunately have nothing else to do. It amuses them: we take what we find and put it in the canal”.
–Bathing place
Since 2017, however, the basin has once again become a summer bathing place with animation Paris Beaches, returned to put up her parasols, deck chairs and cabins from July 9 to August 21. And on Saturday, the collective cleaning operation, called Ménage ton canal, had also taken over an ephemeral swimming spot in the center of the canal Saint-Martin.
Among the happy swimmers, the town hall deputies Pierre Rabadan, responsible for making the Seine a river where people can bathe for 2024 Olympicsand Dan Lert, in charge of ecological transition.
“There are readings every day”, reassures Dan Lert (EELV), questioned in his black and blue jumpsuit by l’AFP. “If the water is not of good quality, it is not open for swimming”, which has already happened, he recalls.
“I trust, it does not look too polluted”, positive Chantal Decourbe, a resident of Fontenay-aux-Roses (Hauts-de-Seine) 63 years old.
–“Caring” for the channel
The various cleaning operations carried out on the canal on Saturday enabled the collection of four tons of waste, said Vianney Delourme, president of Enlarge Your Paris, a local media behind the initiative. “It’s the demonstration of everything we can do to take care of this particular environment,” he says in a bathing suit.
Remained in his shirt, Sylvain Raifaud, the president of the Autolib’ Vélib’ metropolis union (SAVM), must face the persistent dissatisfaction of Vélib’ users, who celebrates his 15th anniversary in mid-July, since Smovengo replaced JCDecaux as an operator in 2018.
But also to that of Fluvial Cleaning, paid for its canal sweeps by private operators of scooters and bicycles (Lime, Dott, Tier) but not by Smovengo, while Vélib’ are ultra-majority in the “repeaches”.
Source : © 2022 AFP
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