“A few days before the Liberation, I was swimming across Paris”

In 1923, a prefectural decree banned swimming in the Seine in Paris. How can we explain the organization of large races in the river?

In the summer, each city had its own crossing. Like Marseille, with the Monte-Cristo crossing starting from the Château d’If, which has continued. There were competitions in the rivers and even in the canals where the locks were closed. Pig races existed in many cities. They threw a pig into the water, the guys dove in and whoever caught it could win. People jumped from a beach, a quay or a coal barge. There was the crossing of Senlis, Verdun, etc. In Paris, swimming was forbidden but this crossing was supported by the National Swimming Federation. In the summer, the flow was not too strong. I took part in the crossing of August 18, 1944, a few days before the Liberation… I finished 4th.

Apart from these races, did Parisians continue to swim in the Seine even though it was forbidden?

Before the war, the municipalities didn’t have swimming pools or not enough. And when it was hot, there were so many people in the pool that they required people to wear overpants: a small triangle of colors: blue, red, green… Anyone who wore a red overpant, for example, had to stay from 10 to 11 a.m. So people would leave with their piece of cloth to cheat the next time. Those who didn’t go to the pools swam by the rivers: there were too many people. The police couldn’t stop people from swimming there, especially on weekends. There were beaches all along the Seine. And in Paris on the quays, you couldn’t find any cars, it was all green. Homeless people lived under the bridges in Paris. Parisians would come there, put on their underpants and take a dip. We, when we didn’t have any underwear during the war, we would steal the curtains to hide from the sun in the train carriages. We would make ourselves woolen underwear, they were heavy when we got out of the water. And then, there were swimming pools on the Seine, like the one in Deligny opposite the National Assembly where the guys would go and chat up girls, a few steps from the deputies and Jacques Chaban-Delmas…

And these swims were not dangerous?

There was a lot of boat traffic. In addition to the tourist boats, there were transport boats, with a bus system on the water. You took a boat to go to La Samaritaine from Charenton for example. The kids who could swim, as soon as they saw a boat coming, they would go into the middle of the river and try to get under it. With the propeller, it was dangerous. These buses stopped at the stops, on wash boats, arranged on the quays. They were called that because people could also wash their clothes there.

At that time, learning to swim was less democratized…

Most of the time, people of my generation (born in 1925, editor’s note) didn’t know how to swim. My father, who had never learned, wanted me to be able to swim without any worries. And what’s more, I liked going to swimming pools because you could take showers there: it was so much better than washing at home between two saucepans. But in fact, in the Seine, many people drowned. Moreover, the wash-house boats were also used to provide rescue: there was a lifebuoy, held by a rope, that was thrown to swimmers in difficulty. There were some everywhere.

And then, the water wasn’t clean…

Swimming was banned because of the water quality. But it got worse later because the city was more and more populated. And then, whole cars were thrown into the water! Eventually, it discouraged people from continuing to swim in the Seine.