Comment: France lags behind on local swimming pools despite headlines

So the Seine got its glow-up. After years of campaigning, a €1.4billion cleaning operation, and a much-scrutinised practice run last summer for the Olympics, the river is finally swimmable again for the first time in over a century. 

Just as tourist authorities predicted, the three sites specially designated for public dipping – near to the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame and the Bibliothèque nationale de France – have been a magnet for visitors all summer. 

And rightly so – the facilities are excellent, lifeguards provide a reassuring presence, water quality is tested daily, and the views… well, let’s just say that the Ile Saint-Louis is a damn sight more pleasing on the eye than the brick wall vistas of your standard 25m local council-run leisure centre.

So I expected to feel slightly more disappointed when my own efforts to jump in at Bercy in July – having made a 3.5-hour train trip from Nièvre expressly – came to naught because of pollution levels that day. 

Instead, a quick Google search reminded me of the embarrassment of aquatic riches elsewhere in Paris: neither my son nor I felt particularly short-changed by the boat-based novelty of the Piscine Joséphine Baker on the opposite side of the river, nor the Art Deco loveliness of the Piscine Pailleron that we dripped across town to directly afterwards. 

In fact, we both agreed on the long train journey home, any old public pool would have scratched the proverbial itch, since so much of France is woefully under-served by them.

Our nearest (pocket-handkerchief) pool is a 35-minute drive away. For something a little sportier (25metres, eight lanes) we have to traipse an hour by car to Nevers.

That’s not to say we are left entirely high and dry in la France profonde. Not a day goes by in summer where I don’t favourably compare the free access to rivers and lakes on our doorstep to the paltry 3% of England’s waterways that permit public swimming.

But come autumn and cooler weather, Blighty’s fairly comprehensive coverage of heated, supervised public baths suddenly tips the balance back into equilibrium.

Some rural communities, like ours, have never had a public swimming pool. Parents looking to teach their kids how to stay safe in all the natural bodies of water surrounding us rely instead on snatching one of the limited places at the itinerant pool (bassin mobile) that occasionally comes to town for a fortnight of classes in the summer. 

Other small communities that do have pools are finding it increasingly difficult to keep them open, according to a 2023 report in Le Monde – victims of rising energy prices, water restrictions and/or a lack of lifeguards.

So while I applaud Paris’s efforts to open up its watercourses to front-crawlers, I can’t help but wish some of that investment came our way too. 

As part of the Seine’s clean-up, much was made of the huge rainwater storage reservoirs that were built to avoid overflows of sewage during storms. 

“Equivalent in size to 20 Olympic swimming pools!” press reports cooed. What a difference just half of one of those would make here.