Paris Declaration: rights of the Seine River

Summary

On 4 June 2025, the Paris City Council adopted a Resolution relating to the protection, conservation and restoration of the oceans and the Seine calling on Parliament to pass a law establishing rights and legal personality of the Seine River that would allow an independent guardian authority to defend its rights in court. The resolution was adopted ahead of the UN Ocean Conference held in Nice from June 9-13. The city also called on France to support the inclusion of ocean rights in the conference declaration.

Paris Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, emphasized that “The Seine must be able to defend itself, as a subject of law and not as an object,” stating that “we can, and above all, we must, better protect the Seine.” She noted that recent projects have “revealed a collective aspiration: a new, more respectful, and more protective relationship with the river. Indeed, the Seine is not just a line in the landscape; it is also the living heart of Paris, with an ecosystem to restore, biodiversity to revive, and a relationship with the living world to transform.”

On the proposal of the Municipal Executive, [the Council] expresses the wish:
• That France support, in the final declaration of the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, the inclusion of the right to exist of the ocean and of every marine being, as well as the legal recognition of marine ecosystems and entities, through the creation of supervisory bodies or institutional mechanisms guaranteeing their official representation and the defense of their interests, so that all human activity at sea respects the balance of ocean ecosystems;

• That Parliament establish a body of fundamental rights for rivers, recognizing in particular their right to exist, to flow freely without excessive hindrance, not to be polluted and to regenerate, and that it adopt a law conferring legal personality on the Seine, in the form of a public legal entity, allowing an independent guardian authority to defend in court its rights recognized by law.

Citizens’ Convention
The resolution was based on the conclusions of the Citizens’ Convention on the Rights of the Seine, held from March-May 2025. The convention was organized by the Paris City Council and comprised fifty citizens chosen at random who questioned experts and took part in weeks of debate to reach a collective opinion. Citizens’ concluded that the Seine should have fundamental rights “to exist, to flow and to regenerate” and expressed their support for granting the Seine legal personhood and recognizing it as a living river essential to humanity and the environment itself. Citizens called for “a more ecocentric vision…to safeguard the health of the Seine in all our uses and through a different form of governance”, emphasizing the need to transform our relationship with nature and to “place the environment above private interests and at the heart of the common good.”

The Citizens’ Opinion was presented to the Council ahead of the vote, during which Mayor Hidalgo reiterated the city’s commitment to a law recognizing the legal personhood and fundamental rights of the Seine and other French rivers: “Faced with the ecological emergency, Paris is taking a new step by reaffirming its commitment to protecting nature and the living world… Following [the citizens’ convention] opinion and to reaffirm Paris’s commitment, we solemnly requested, in the Paris Council, the recognition of the Seine’s legal personhood. We will also support the introduction of a bill. This is a political response to the ecological emergency. It’s time to act!”

Impact Statement

Granting the Seine River legal personhood would allow for protection tailored to the threats it faces and responds to the democratic desire to protect it, but it also means challenging current governance models by integrating truly ecocentric dynamics and policies. To integrate the rights of Nature into the national democratic debate, citizens are putting forward various proposals, such as a national citizens’ convention on the rights of nature and a referendum on enshrining nature’s rights in France’s constitution.

Involved Organizations

Related Initiatives