Paris authorities insist that it is OK to drink the city’s tap water

Paris city authorities have reassured residents and visitors that the city's tap water is perfectly safe to drink.

Published: 22 July 2019 09:16 CEST

Paris authorities insist that it is OK to drink the city's tap water

Photo: AFP

The announcement comes after a rumour swept French social media claiming that the city's water was polluted with tritium and was unsafe to drink.

The local authorities for Ile de France, which covers the greater Paris region, said: “The levels observed in the tap water to date do not show any risk to public health. Tap water can therefore be consumed without restriction.”

Démenti sur la présence de #tritium dans l'eau potable : aucun arrêté préfectoral n'a été pris par le préfet de Paris.
Les valeurs observées à ce jour ne montrent pas de risque pour la santé publique @ARS_IDF .
?L’eau du robinet peut donc être consommée sans restriction.

— Préfet d'Île-de-France, préfet de Paris (@Prefet75_IDF) 19 July 2019

The rumour, which was shared thousands of times on social media over the weekend, appears to have been started by an account claiming to belong to a nurse in a Parisian hospital and referring to the presence of “titanium” in water and the publication of a prefectoral decree.

Public health authority the l’Assistance publique des hôpitaux de Paris stated: “We have obviously not received any order of any kind relating to water contamination.”

The authority added that both it and the ambulance service had received many calls over the weekend from worried members of the public.

Tritium is present in minute quantities in drinking water, but Paris water authority Eau de Paris says the amount present in the city's water is well below safe levels.

Eau de Paris pointed out that the maximum allowed level for tritium set in France is 100 Bq/l (Becquerel per litre), which is 100 times less than the level of 10,000 Bq/l recommended by the World Health Organisation.

According to measurements made between 2016 and 2019, “no excess level was observed”, and the authority added: “The average threshold recorded in Paris since 2016 varies between 0 and 1.22 Bq/L”.

It is not known who was behind the Twitter account that began the rumour, but Paris authorities say they reserve the right to take legal action against them.

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