Laetitia has made an appointment by phone to go to the pool. “Usually, I’m not taking my shirt “, has fun, does it. This fifty-year old spicy is impatient, she wants to return to the water on his body ” stayed too long confined “. Its swimming pool, long in the red zone Covid-19, and indicates, at the end of the wire, the measures to which it will have to conform : “mask-wearing compulsory up to the showers, no towel outside of the locker room, the shower incoming, not outgoing, a window of an hour and a quarter to swim, not more than 30 swimmers at the same time “. A protocol drastic that it welcomes, however, a good heart, because finally the pool opens.
People swimmer
Laetitia is part of the $ 13 million of followers of the second sports activity most practiced by the French (after the running and walking combined). According to the figures in the report 2018 of the Court of auditors, it is a quarter of the population over 15 years old who swim each year in the 1.6 million square metres of pool available in the country (4 135 swimming pools and 6 412 basins of swimming). France has a basin per 10 000 inhabitants (0,88 in the United Kingdom). Even in terms of private pools, France is the European champion with a swimming pool for 27 people.
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But if today, 83 % of the French know how to swim, the country has long been lagging behind. Until the 1920s, it is quenching more than you do swimming in these ” cathedrals hygienists “, as called by the historian Diego Inglez de Souza. In the Mirror of sports, December 23, 1920, one contemplates the disaster : 1 362 basins in Germany, 806 in England, 31 in Belgium and 21 in France… The country advance to the oar, and this weekly publication illustrated remember for years the ” too short list of swimming pools French “, a country where, without trying to ” beat the records of extraordinary Americans, Australians or Swedes “, it will be “before all, be sure not to drown” !
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Race to the ego
“It is this that will lead to launch the construction programs of the period between the two world wars,” explains the sociologist Benedict Hadet, a professor of sociology associate at the Ehess. “He comes to make up the delay in a context of competition between nations, with the poor results of the swimmers French in the official journal of the beginning of the century. “Rivalry of the nations, pursuit of olympic medals, the olympic games of 1924 in Paris, accelerate the pace of construction. Georges-Vallerey, porte des Lilas, is endowed with 15 ‘ 000 seats to accommodate the public. Modernity sees big : “25 meters on 12” for the basin, the bed-is it still in the Mirror of sports. For these plants to swim, is abandoned little by little booths around the bath, as it is the case at the pool Molitor (1929). The bricks and beams of metal, replacing the wood, the Twentieth century is well there. And then the war, and then in a more large-thing, up until the 1960s.
The swimming pool Molitor in Paris.
Mr. Sunflower, le Corbusier grand bath
An unprecedented transaction will be launched in 1969. Code name ” 1 000 swimming pools “. Again, it is pride that is the president. Because the France, proud people of swimmers, returned humiliated to Mexico, where were held the summer olympic games of 1968. A medal (bronze) on 87… (52 for the United States). The slap is stinging, but the emotion will be even more vivid next year. The summer of 1969 is, in fact, marked by two tragedies terrible. Ten-nine children in the holidays in a leisure centre die drowned in the Loire. And then, at Thonon-les-Bains, on the border with switzerland, on the promenade boat, The Fraidieu flows to peak in the lake Leman, killing 24 people, including 14 girls… To learn to swim to children, a large building campaign actually push about 700 pools, and we saw a symbolic form of years ZUP : the pool Sunflower. Bernard Schoeller, the ” mr. Sunflower “, has won the competition of the swimming pool, revolutionary, economic, modular, and semi-business on rails. Then, 184 seeds will be implanted in 60 departments between 1972 and 1984. This Corbusier, the large bath is off the 5 April 2020, in the general indifference of the health crisis.
One of the many swimming pools Sunflower. © P. poschadel — own Work, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15371000
The pool is fresh water
More than 70 % of the centres have been built before 1995. 30% tell about our contemporary history. The 41 pools of paris, including Benedict Hachet is a specialist, blur the border inside and out with stained-glass windows, ” as Nakache in Belleville, Josephine-Baker at the BNF “. Outside Paris, it is a new type of pool that appears : aquatic centres multi-purpose (allow € 25 million for construction, $ 50 million when it goes wrong, as in le Mesnil-Amelot, in which the pool is to be inaugurated in 2010). With them, we can see emerging the new expectations of the public ; aqua bike, hot tub, fitness room, in addition to lines of swim. Some places leave a mark on a side, as the floating pool Josephine-Baker, moored on the river Seine in Paris, or the swimming pool Molitor, very chic, very expensive, only accessible with a room, a spa or the restaurant. Or even, breaking the traditional codes of space and the colors (blue and white) : the pool designed by the architect Jean Nouvel in le Havre. The sociologist also speaks of the new objectives : the ecology and social diversity – or even genres, because the showers are more often mixed. New pools tend to give away the chlorine, but we note that the concept of a public swimming pool, natural (150 in Germany) just to get to us, with France, with… 20.
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Chloraddicts ? In Paris, there are 7 million admissions annually, 70 000 users very regular, 190 000 users per pool so that they are made to hold up to 120 000. The number of entries has increased from 46 % in fifteen years. This is no longer a sport, it is a phenomenon. The specialist Benedict Hachet falls, in turbid waters, the presence of a fauna : the chloraddicts. “Those change of pool depending on their timetables and their knowledge of the level of attendance at one or the other pool – according to a study by the Paris city hall. They are ready to do a half-hour transfer to find favorable conditions for swimming. On the move, they choose their hotel based on the proximity of the swimming pool and still have a shirt in their bag… ” Those that are found in front of the door of the pool in the early morning, even in mid-winter. Those for which the confinement and three months of closure had to be particularly hard. The first to throw it in the water Monday, 22 June ?
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