Authorities in Paris began, on Monday, draining the canal St Martin, a favourite haunt of hipsters in northeastern Paris, in an attempt to refurbish its locks and remove rubbish.
Commissioned by Napoleon in the early 19th century to provide fresh drinking water, the canal in the 10th arrondissement was paid for with a new tax on wine. It went on to become a transport artery, but faced being decommissioned when boat traffic declined in the 1960s.
It survived, however, and is now home to trendy shops and restaurants and featured in the film Amélie, when Audrey Tautou skimmed stones along the surface. The canal is particularly popular in the summer when locals and tourists sip drinks while watching barges cruise by.
Popularity has its downside, though, and the three-mile canal has become a huge rubbish tip, much to the anger of locals who have organised efforts to clean up the waterway, complete with their own Facebook page .
The official clean-up, which started yesterday, will last four months and cost €9.5 million. "An important part of these works concerns the locks, but it also an opportunity to clean the canal of objects that Parisians and tourists throw into the waters of Paris," said the office of the city's mayor, Anne Hidalgo.
Fish will have to be collected before the canal is drained. Among the objects found in previous clean-ups in 1993 and 2002 were: bicycles, scooters, motorbikes, paving stones, police barriers and bottles – empty and full. Two 75mm shells from the first World War, two empty safes, gold pieces, a pallet truck, two wheelchairs and a toilet bowl were also fished out. – Guardian service