ROME (Reuters) -Rome hopes to open the River Tiber to public swimming within five years, the city’s mayor said on Thursday, echoing a similar initiative taken in Paris.

French authorities opened the Seine in July to swimming for the first time since 1923, after an extensive clean-up prompted by its use as a venue for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Rome’s Mayor Roberto Gualtieri said he had set up a working group for the Tiber initiative and that it would be opened up to national and regional authorities too.

“We are pleased to have already established that this is an entirely achievable goal: within five years, we will be able to swim in the Tiber,” Gualtieri said during a visit to the Osaka Expo fair in Japan.

He said there were no estimates yet of the eventual cost but that it would likely

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