Its closure, decided by Vert Marine due to soaring energy prices, had led to intense mobilization and even the creation of a collective, Pailleron in struggle. But this Tuesday morning, the Pailleron swimming pool, in the 19th arrondissement, finally reopened. The crowd is rather weak, it must be said that the all-public slot is only from 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., then it is the schoolchildren. But for the few regular swimmers present, the closure was heartbreaking.
“I was too sad,” testifies Marie, 24, who comes “at least once a week”. “When I saw that it was closed due to the energy crisis, I was disgusted,” she continues. I sent the petition asking for the reopening of all my friends, all my family. The young woman did not come to swim this morning but to find out about annual subscriptions. “But since the change of operator [le 31 août, Vert Marine a succédé à l’UCPA]prices have increased,” she laments.
We fall back on Georges-Hermant
Cédric* who “comes twice a week” finds it “scandalous to close for energy reasons”. “I am a job seeker and I come here to keep myself in shape,” he adds. Since yesterday, he has been looking on the Internet to see if the swimming pool is reopening, then not being sure of anything, he took his bike to see and on the spot he was finally told that it was open. He was therefore able to take advantage of the 33-meter pool “but without the sauna”, he laments.
Catherine, she also came to the information before going to work. “I came to see this morning if it was open this weekend”, indicates this great swimmer, at the rate of three baths per week. She learned the news of the closure through social networks but as she was returning from vacation, she was not penalized too much. “We are lucky to have another swimming pool in the 19th district, which is the Georges-Hermant swimming pool,” she explains. Temporarily it was a pretty good plan B. »
Not really Cédric’s opinion. “With the closure of Pailleron, everyone rushed to Georges-Hermant, it was a rat race,” he says, annoyed. This morning, the flow was reversed, since due to a broken window, this pool was closed. And so the usual swimmers of this one fell back on Pailleron. Like what, in swimming, things go very quickly.
*Name has been changed