Paris authorities have begun draining the Canal St-Martin , a waterway that has become the French capital’s hipster epicentre but which critics say has become an urban rubbish dump for uncouth revellers. 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned the picturesque canal in 1804 to provide the capital with both goods and fresh water. 
 
 Today Parisian “bobos”, its cultured and moneyed trendsetters, are prepared to pay €10,000 (£7,300) per square metre for a place overlooking the canal’s famed iron footbridges, tree-lined cobbled towpaths and trendy bars and restaurants. 
 
 The drainage operation requires emptying a two kilometre-long stretch of 90,000 cubic metres of water to collect piles of rubbish and renovate its four double locks. It will cost the city €9.5 million and turn the waterway into a dry ditch for three months. 
 
 Workers began by allowing most of the water to escape via sluice filters while leaving 50cm to fish out an estimated 4.5 tons of trout, carp and bream hiding in its greenish depths. These are being transferred to another part not under renovation. 
 
 Photo: Reuters 
 
 Once all the water is drained on Thursday, workers will begin dredging the canal and removing myriad objects thrown in over the past 14 years. 
 
 The last time the waterway was drained in 2001, some 40 tons of rubbish was recovered. Among the objects were bicycles, motorbikes, two empty safes, gold coins, a pallet truck, two wheelchairs, a toilet bowl and two 75mm shells from the First World War. 
 
 A pistol has already been fished out in the first few hours of this year’s clean-up operation and has been handed to police. 
 
 Workers also expect to find quite a few of the city's popular Velib’ hire bikes as well as mountains of beer cans and bottles. 
 
 Cutting through northeast Paris, the Canal Saint Martin starts by the Place de la Bastille but its most frequented stretch is just east of the Place de la République. 
 
 Its grittier pre-war past was immortalised in Hôtel du Nord, Marcel Carné's 1938 iconic film where artists, gangsters and prostitutes cross paths at the hotel, now a waterfront restaurant. More recently, its quaint footbridges were captured in the feel good Parisian film Amelie. 
 
 In the summer months, picnickers with baguettes, beer bottles and wine turn up in their thousands in search of a shady spot to while away a balmy evening without having to pay a fortune for the privilege of sitting in an upmarket Parisian terrace. 
 
 But its popularity has led to complaints that it has become a grimy open-air toilet. 
 
 Some appalled residents even launched a social media campaign to raise awareness over uncouth behaviour, posting a series of Instagram images depicting vomit-stained quays and smashed or empty beer bottles. In others, the canal’s ducks are hard-pushed to find a way past cigarette butts, crisp packets, beer cans and plastic bags. 
 
 Calls for people to take responsibility for the trash they leave behind have largely been ignored. 
 
 A few of the residents even tried pinning up notices on their doors beseeching people not to urinate on them. One notice read: "This door is the entrance to our building. Be nice and go and urinate elsewhere." 
 
 Célia Blauel, deputy mayor in charge of the environment and canals, called on Parisians to respect the canal once its makeover is complete. 
 
 “If everyone mucks in and avoids throwing anything in the water, we might be able to swim in the canal in a few years, as in numerous other European cities,” she told Le Parisien. ||||| The French capital’s Canal Saint-Martin is being dredged for the first time in 15 years – and the mysterious objects emerging from the sludge unmask the area’s secret life 
 
 Curious crowds had gathered on the arched footbridges that criss-cross Paris’s favourite hipster hang-out, the Canal Saint-Martin, craning to get a look at the oddities poking out of the mysterious brown sludge below. 
 
 “Bloody hell, it’s a giant dustbin,” said Marie, a local office-worker, taking photos of the mountains of old wine-bottles, scores of office chairs, bikes, rolled-up carpets, wheelie suitcases and street signs stranded in the muddy pit. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Scores of the city’s Vélib hire bikes are among the items littering the bottom of the canal. Photograph: Yoan Valat/EPA 
 
 Paris’s picturesque Canal Saint-Martin, completed in 1825 but commenced on the orders of Napoleon, who wanted to reinforce the city’s drinking water supply, has in recent years become known as the favoured spot of Paris’s “Bobos” – bourgeois bohemians – wealthy, urban, young leftwingers who love to gather for summer evening aperitifs on the pavements along its banks. The canal is drained and cleaned once every 10–15 years, but when it happens, the bizarre items found at the bottom are one of the most curious and intriguing sights in the city, throwing up the mud-caked mysteries of Paris life. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest An old ghetto blaster awaits its rescue. Photograph: Yoan Valat/EPA 
 
 On Monday, when workers began to slowly empty 90,000 cubic metres of water into the river Seine in a multimillion-euro cleaning operation that will last three months, they found one gun and police are poised for more. The last time the canal was drained, in 2001, the haul included two 75mm shells from the first world war, safes, gold coins, washing machines, at least one car and 40 tonnes of rubbish. In one earlier cleaning, 56 cars were fished out. 
 
 The full inventory is yet to be done – the fish have been evacuated and tractors will be brought in to drag away the vast number of items at the bottom. But the view from the bridges already reveals an extraordinary amount of debris that has been tipped into the canal in the past decade. There are scores of Paris’s Vélib hire bikes, lots of other bikes, myriad chairs of all descriptions, at least one motorbike, supermarket trolleys, shopping caddies, public dustbins, a fire-extinguisher, a children’s doll’s pushchair marooned in the middle of the canal, street signs, umbrellas and wheelie suitcases. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest One of the many scooters found in the canal. Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters 
 
 “It’s like some kind of weird submarine treasure,” said Marc, 45, a self-employed local resident. “I just can’t believe the quantity of Vélibs in there. I guess they were stolen and thrown in afterwards. It’s bizarre,” he shrugged. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A vintage camera sits on the bottom, amid hundreds of discarded mussel shells. Photograph: SIPA/Rex/Shutterstock 
 
 Paris city hall, apart from warning people to resist trying to climb in to look for lost possessions that might have dropped in in recent years, are using the exercise to warn against littering the canal. 
 
 Bernard, 54, a public-sector worker, who had also been on the bridge to witness the last dredging in 2001, was aghast at the mountains of mud-caked wine-bottles and cans. “That’s Paris for you, it’s filthy,” he sighed. “The last time, I don’t remember seeing so much rubbish in it. I despair. The Bobos are using it as a dustbin.” ||||| A woman inspecting the goods in the emptying canal. Photo: AFP 
 
 Bikes, scooters, shopping trolleys... and a gun? The mammoth cleaning job on the Canal Saint-Martin is turning up some interesting finds. See them here. 
 
 As you may have already noticed, the famed Canal Saint-Martin has almost been emptied. 
 
 It's part of a huge cleaning project, the like of which hasn't been seen for 14 years. 
 
 Engineers erected a small and unspectacular dam at the top of the canal by Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad on Monday, and around 90,000 cubic metres of water have since been emptied gradually into the River Seine. 
 
 If you want to know more about why and how they're doing it, click here. 
 
 The draining has already revealed several pieces of intrigue, including a handgun spotted by The Local on Monday afternoon (see pictures below). Police arrived soon after to take the weapon. 
 
 Further along the canal, curious Parisians are flocking to the bridges to see for themselves what the canal-bed is hiding. 
 
 Here's a closer look at what's turned up so far, including many a Velib' bicycle, several scooters, and thousands of empty wine bottles. 
 
 Story continues below… ||||| For the first time in fourteen years, Paris authorities on Monday began draining the Canal Saint-Martin, a popular waterway that attracts tourists and revellers in the French capital’s trendy northeastern 10th arrondissement. 
 
 The complex operation involves emptying the three-mile-long canal of 90,000 cubic metres of water – and moving more than four tonnes of fish to their new home in the River Seine – before workers can repair the locks and collect the inevitable piles of rubbish. 
 
 It will cost the city €9.5 million and turn the waterway into a dry ditch for three months. 
 
 “We do this, on average, every 12 to 14 years,” said Célia Blauel, who is in charge of the city’s waterways and environmental policies. 
 
 “It’s necessary to dredge the canal, repair its walls and renovate the locks,” she told FRANCE 24. 
 
 Napoleonic origins 
 
 The picturesque waterway was commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804 to provide the capital with both goods and fresh water. 
 
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 It survived the decline in boat traffic after the two world wars and has since found a new raison d’être as a magnet for tourists, youths and families. 
 
 Most of the canal’s nine locks were modernised in 2008 and are now controlled remotely. 
 
 Joseph Tomasi, who has worked the locks for 25 years, said he missed the “good old days” when he was solely in charge. 
 
 “We knew all the people in the neighbourhood, some would even bring us croissants,” he told FRANCE 24. “We were at the heart of Parisian life.” 
 
 Tomasi still had plenty to do on Monday as he opened the first lock upstream, marking the start of the great canal clean-up. 
 
 “By the end of the day the canal will be all but empty, leaving a shallow pool of water to collect the fish,” said Julien Gaidot, who is in charge of draining operations. 
 
 A team of around a dozen fishermen will have three days to complete their catch, before the canal is fully emptied on Thursday. 
 
 Junked bikes, tubs and WWI shells 
 
 In all likelihood the workers will be catching a lot more than just fish. The downside of the canal’s increasing popularity is the surge in rubbish thrown into its murky waters. 
 
 The last clean-up in 2001 revealed some 40 tonnes of detritus, including bicycles, motorbikes, bathtubs and two 75mm shells dating from World War I. 
 
 This year the workers are expecting to find several of the city's popular Velib’ hire bikes as well as a mountain of beer cans and bottles. 
 
 “And I’m not even talking about the dead animals!” joked Tomasi, pointing at a huge rat the size of a cat racing across the lock. 
 
 Blauel, the environmental official, said the city ultimately planned to make the Villette basin upstream of the canal fit for swimming. 
 
 The basin, which connects the Canal Saint-Martin with the larger Canal de l’Ourcq, is currently banned to swimmers – although Parisians regularly brave the ban in the hot summer months. 
 
 But Tomasi has no plans to go for a dip. “Down there you can barely see 10 inches in front of you,” he said. 
 

– It has been 15 years since Paris last cleaned the Canal Saint-Martin—long enough for the bottom of the waterway to accumulate thousands of wine and beer bottles, dozens of bikes, and at least one gun. The scenic area along the canal has become what the Telegraph calls the French capital's "hipster epicenter," though residents complain that partyers have turned the canal commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte more than 200 years ago into a garbage dump. Ahead of this week's cleanup, authorities had to drain a major portion of the canal and evacuate what turned out to be tons of fish, reports the Local, which notes that Parisians have been amassing on bridges to see what kind of mud-covered treasures the canal yields. The last cleanup, in 2001, yielded unexploded shells from WWI, gold coins, and safes amid around 40 tons of trash, the Guardian reports. The current cleanup is still underway, but authorities have already found tons more trash, including signs, suitcases, carpets, and, for some reason, a huge number of chairs. Residents say there seems to be more trash than ever this time around, and they blame the increase on the hip young newcomers they have nicknamed "Bobos." "That's Paris for you, it's filthy," a 54-year-old man who was there for the last cleaning tells the Guardian. "The last time, I don't remember seeing so much rubbish in it. I despair. The Bobos are using it as a dustbin." (Speaking of Napoleon ... here's how a neurosurgeon contributed to his undoing.)