The city of Paris is known for the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and also the River Sen.

The Sen wine. the river Sen.

The Sen winds all the way through Paris, east-west, and cuts the city in half.

Our colleague Joshua Robinson lives in Paris, and he says the river is the center of everything in the city. You define where you live, where you work, whether it's on the left bank or the right bank,

and the send, just as a river, is a place to hang out people on sunny evenings in the summer

We'll sit out there and bring bottles of wine and cheese and smoke and it's just a almost a public park for people.

And the Sen is also taking center stage at this year's Olympics.

It was the key part of the opening ceremonies and there are two events where Olympic

athletes will actually get into the water and swim, the triathlon and the marathon

swim. Have you ever wanted to swim in this end?

Absolutely not.

Because I'm not a crazy person.

Why not? Why is that idea so absurd?

I think everyone just has a kind of common sense understanding that these waters that you can't see the bottom of,

that you know you see things floating in all the time where people

dump cigarette butts and empty bottles and occasionally bike share bikes, you know, I think the idea of then looking down into the water and seeing, you know, floating plastic bags and other horrible things, it sort of is a black eye for the city.

To put it bluntly, the Sen is full of crap,

and with sewage and wastewater flowing into the river when it rains,

it's also full of dangerous bacteria.

So for the past few years, the city has been scrambling to clean up this

end in hopes of having it safe enough to swim in for the 2024 Olympics.

I think it's very important for the image of Paris because it's become such a set of headlines.

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