Will the Paris Olympics be the final nail in Macron’s coffin?

The mayor of Paris went for a swim in the Seine on Wednesday and emerged invigorated. The water, said Anne Hidalgo, was ‘soft and wonderful’. Hidalgo had initially scheduled a date last month for her dip but the quality of the water didn’t pass muster so she was forced to postpone her PR stunt – until nine days before Paris welcomes the XXXIII Olympiad.

There are no reports that Hidalgo is now laid up in bed with a nasty bacterial infection, so one must presume the Seine will be able to host several swimming events in the coming weeks. That was the good news for the mayor.

The bad news is the violence that has rocked Paris this week. On Monday a soldier on patrol at the Gare de l’Est was wounded in a knife attack; on Wednesday a diner was killed when a man deliberately drove his car into a restaurant’s terrace; and on Thursday police shot dead a knifeman after he had stabbed an officer near the Champs-Elysées.