1,2,3, swim!
Because learning to swim represents not just a physical activity but the acquisition of an essential life skill, Paris 2024, alongside the ANS (Agence nationale du Sport), the FFN (Fédération Française de Natation), Électricité de France S.A, the Seine-Saint-Denis department, and the city of Marseille, is lending a hand to ensure everyone has the opportunity to learn how to swim. First organised in 2021, in 2022 the initiative was spread to 24 towns, with more than 5,000 children benefiting from the programme. In 2023, Learn to Swim spread across the whole of France, thanks to 38 projects that helped more than 20,000 children learn how to swim.
Find more about the 38 projects
With 1.6 million inhabitants and only 36 pools, Seine-Saint-Denis is the country’s worst-equipped department for swimming. The Games provide the opportunity to develop the sporting infrastructure in Seine-Saint-Denis. Following the lead of the Olympic Aquatics Centre, the major aquatics facility that France has been demanding for over 10 years, five new swimming pools will be built or renovated in Seine-Saint-Denis by the end of 2024, as well as six gyms and leisure centres. In the meantime, Paris 2024 and its stakeholders are rallying together to make swimming lessons more accessible for the inhabitants of the Seine-Saint-Denis department.
Summer 2021: swimming lessons for 1,800 children
Throughout the summer of 2021, swimming and water safety lessons were offered to almost two thousand children aged between 4 and 12 who did not know how to swim. The lessons ran until 29 August and were held in four temporary pools set up for the occasion. Twenty swimming instructors were on-hand throughout the summer to lead the courses, which were made up of ten 45-minute sessions spread over two weeks. The children took the lessons in groups of ten, in strict compliance with the applicable healthcare regulations. A certain number of swimming lessons for adults were offered by the towns where the swimming pools were located.
The teaching of swimming is imperative for our individual and collective safety, and ensuring that people know how to swim is a genuine concern for society. In this context, I have been determined to make learning to swim a priority for our federation. The prospect of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024 must serve as a veritable catalyst to profoundly transform our society and move us on from being a nation of sportspeople to being a sporting nation.
