The elders remember this of course. This beach on the Loire below Ste-Radegonde stormed each summer by the people of Touraine. “At that time, in the 1960s, there were nearly 2,000 bathers there every summer day”, says Jérôme Baratier, director of the urban planning agency for the Tours conurbation.
Only here, this spot disappeared at the end of the 60s. With in particular the construction of the A 10 motorway whose bridge over the Loire passed there.
19 children drowned in the Loire near Angers in 1969, one of the most tragic drownings in French history”, Jérôme Baratier
And then this drama in Maine-et-Loire, July 18, 1969 in Juigné-sur-Loire, when 19 children from a leisure center drowned after being swept away by the current following the collapse of a sandbank. “This is one of the most tragic drownings nationally and that trauma is still vivid there.”
Since the 70s, bathing is now prohibited almost all along the Loire axis. “Except in Maine-et-Loire, where every summer, there are two bathing places in the Loire which are authorized and supervised”says Jérôme Baratier.
Danger of dead ends, bacteria, preservation of the natural environment
“Today, this general ban is less and less understandable, on the one hand because it is not explained and on the other hand with global warming which will bring a need for freshness in summer”.
This is why the urban planning agency of the agglomeration of Tours took over the file. “In any case, we are trying to measure under what conditions we could lift this general ban”, continues its director Jérôme Baratier.
The Loire is a living river. We are not in a swimming pool. You have to know its dangers and the fragility of the environment”, Jérôme Baratier
“First, we must take into consideration that the Loire is a living river. So yes, this river has certain portions, or certain moments in which it is dangerous, such as the phenomena of dead ends (when a sandbar slips under your feet). Dangerous also in relation to the diseases and bacteria that the Loire can carry at certain times of the year.
To bathe in the Loire is therefore to know its dangers but it is also to know the fragility of the environment. We are not in a swimming pool, we are not in a sanitized environment. But we are in a place where protected species nest, with an extremely precious and fragile ecosystem. Our work is therefore to determine the instructions for the safe return of swimming in the Loire.
We would be in favor of lifting this general ban, but only in certain places to be defined”
For the moment, we would rather go on the idea of not lifting the general ban but of explaining it and being able to lift it at certain points in order to be able to find this taste for water that we have lost for fifty years. ‘years. Now, it’s up to everyone to take up this investigation to move the subject forward.”
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