It’s official, from July 1, the little Marseillais and Marseillaises won’t pay a cent more to go to the city’s municipal swimming pools. The aim of this initiative: to facilitate learning to swim at the start of the sixth grade.
Paid access to the wetlands of the city of Marseille is over for children under 12 years old. Here is the salutary decision of the municipality of Marseille and more precisely of the sports assistant Sébastien Jibrayel (PS). As of this summer, the youngest will be able to swim for free in all municipal swimming pools in the city. But that’s not all, 12-16 year olds also benefit from a reduced price of 1.50 euros.
“We want to remove all obstacles to the practice of swimming and cost is one of them.”
Sebastien Jibrayel, quoted by Provence
This initiative aims to promote learning to swim from an early age to reduce the number of students unable to swim upon arrival at secondary school. Indeed, according to official figures from 2019, “nearly half of high school students, at the end of sixth grade, cannot swim well”as the former Minister of Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, confirmed to our brothers and sisters in the Parisian†
As a reminder, since 2020, the city of Marseille offers a single price of 3 euros for all swimmers.