« We hope that Paris’s example will encourage other cities in France and Europe to create open-water swimming areas, » said Pierre Rabadan, deputy to the mayor of Paris in charge of the Seine. At the solarium at the Bercy swimming site on Wednesday, August 27, the official expressed this hope as the capital’s swimming season had just been extended by two weeks.
The idea is not new, but the « popular success » of the Paris experiment – with nearly 100,000 swimmers since the beginning of summer – has brought it back to the forefront. « We feel that this is the right time to get our message across, » said Julien Néméry, member of the Les Gens qui ont Chaud (« People Who Are Hot ») collective, founded in May, which campaigns for the right to swim in open water in southeastern Grenoble.
In the southeast Vienne and Isère and northeast Meuse regions, « activist dives » have multiplied. « It’s a symbolic way of calling public authorities to take action. Access to river water is a right, » said Antoine Maltey, member of the citizen collective Baignade Critique (« Critical Swimming »).
These initiatives draw inspiration from Big Jump, a European campaign launched in 2002 by the European Rivers Network. Every year, on the same day, thousands of people across Europe jump into rivers, lakes and streams to demand better water quality. « It met with unexpected success, » said its founder, Swiss national Roberto Epple. Each initiative is listed on a map available on the website. « Some years, we counted nearly 600 actions of various kinds. And then it got out of control: Local groups started organizing their own events without us even knowing. »
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