To meet Agathe and her swimming companions, you have to get up early and aim for Catalans beach or Maldormé cove, the closest to the city center.

They watch each other, hypothermia can happen without warning.

That January morning, they swam almost half an hour, more than the famous "one degree" rule.

"You should not stay longer in minutes than the temperature of the water. So 18 degrees would be no more than 18 minutes", explains Alain Ferrero, a doctor who sees this practice as a form of meditation.

Swimmers prepare for the "Crossing of the Corniche" from Prophet beach, January 7, 2023 in Marseille © Nicolas TUCAT / AFP

This winter, the water fluctuated between 11 and 15 degrees and the majority of regulars swim around noon.

On the artificial Prado beach, swimmers parade around a hut transformed into an open-air changing room.

Balaclava rather than wetsuit

"I organize everything in my day around this, to save myself this crazy and free pleasure", says Sabine Viard.

The 49-year-old interior designer goes there every day "even when the weather is terrible".

One throws himself without a suit but never without his hood, "the anti-cold weapon par excellence".

Another prefers to put two swimming caps on top of each other.

“No jellyfish!” rejoices a third.

Everyone says that swimming in cold water develops their immune system, that they never get sick.

Swimmers take part in the "Crossing of the Corniche", on January 7, 2023 in Marseille © Nicolas TUCAT / AFP

It is difficult to measure the growth of this discipline, which has become Olympic since 2008, but open water competitions are multiplying everywhere in France, from Lake Annecy to the Bassin de la Villette in Paris.

The Monte Cristo Challenge in Marseille is one of the oldest.

It starts from the Château d'If and now attracts 5,000 swimmers, compared to 25 when it was created in 1999.

Demanding baths

This trend is accompanied by the emergence of militant and political projects to reclaim bathing areas in the city, observes Benoît Hachet, sociologist at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS).

In October, groups of swimmers such as Les Libres Nageurs, Team Malmousque or Les Nageurs du Prado united during an offbeat demonstration at sea to demand more safety in the face of nautical incivility, in a bay which will host the sailing events. at the 2024 Olympic Games.

Some also campaign for the creation of marine protected areas like Sylvain Ronca, inexhaustible on species that are becoming scarce, including sea urchins, victims according to him of poaching.

Sylvain Ronca swims in the Mediterranean, January 3, 2023 in Marseille © Nicolas TUCAT / AFP

"When we swim, we have ideas, a sensitivity to the cleanliness of water, access to water", develops Benjamin Clasen, president of "Free Swimmers".

Access to water is not so easy in Marseille, which has 57 km of coastline but only a handful of sandy beaches and many coves inaccessible to children, for example.

The left-wing municipality therefore wants to develop the bathing offer and has promised the creation this summer of "a swimming pool accessible to all" at the foot of the Mucem, at the exit of the Old Port, without specifying its contours, a pressing request Free Swimmers.

Denmark, Switzerland or Germany are ahead on the subject.

Copenhagen, for example, set up port baths at the beginning of the century.

For Benoît Hachet, "we must support this movement to reclaim natural bathing areas, particularly in rivers, because the model of swimming pools will be called into question and with the repeated heat waves that are coming, people will seek to cool off at all costs" .

Elsewhere, other movements are emerging, such as in the north of Paris where "Les Ourcq Polaires" bathe in Pantin in the icy water of the Canal de l'Ourcq and claim the right to do so despite the ban.

© 2023 AFP