This summer, bathing flags are changing color on the beaches. Here’s what you need to know before setting foot in the water.
Small change on the beaches this summer. While schoolchildren have finished the school year, it’s vacation time for thousands of French people, who will hit the road in the coming days to take a well-deserved rest. Mountain, countryside, seaside, in France or abroad, the destinations are endless. But, before landing on the beach this summer, it will be necessary to be vigilant, because the looks of the flags bathing have changed. In fact, the site service-public.fr summarizes these changes. No more triangular signs. Now the flags are rectangular. And their colors are also different.
If green still indicates authorized, supervised swimming with no apparent danger, the orange flag turns yellow to warn of a limited or marked danger, despite professional supervision. A two-tone flag will also appear. Its two horizontal bands yellow and red will thus signal the demarcation of a supervised area during the opening hours of the aid station, originally purple. The red flag does not change: it always indicates a ban on swimming.
These new flags landing
Changes made in a “goal of‘standardization“ with the international standard, in order to allow foreign tourists in particular to understand these signs, underlines the site service-public.fr. Moreover, if some flags have changed their look, others will act as new ones on the beaches this summer. So the purple flagmainly used in the Overseas Territories, indicates a suspicion of pollution or the presence of hazardous aquatic species, leading to a temporary bathing ban. the black and white checkerboardhe signals to bathers a aquatic and nautical practice area (surfing, paddle, sailing or motor boat, jet-ski…) where swimming is allowed, but risky. Furthermore, a calico triangular red color with a prohibition sign indicating the temporary prohibition of bathing.