To ensure all the services promised by the leisure base of La Warenne, in Charleville-Mézières, it would take four pairs of eyes of lifeguards. In the middle of the tourist season, the place has only three.
Result : they prohibit pedal boats and canoesand supervised swimming is only allowed from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., instead of starting at 1 p.m. “We made the road to ride a pedal boat and we learn that it is inaccessible, so a little disappointed”, confides Adèle, who came especially from around Reims to enjoy an afternoon by the water.
According to the federation of lifeguards, it would be missing 2000 graduates over the whole of France. And the leisure base of La Warenne, in Charleville-Mézières, is therefore struggling to recruit, after losing its two lifeguards, who witnessed the drowning of a six-year-old boy in mid-July.
I accepted for the three weeks, but it is out of the question that I return to this site if it is to find the same working conditions and the same salary! -Fatehi Maskri, lifeguard
A capped salary and deteriorating working conditions
Fatéhi Maskri is a soldier and a lifeguard trainer. According to him, there is a reason why young people no longer want to apply: salary.
The lifeguard was called for a three-week mission on the leisure base, to work 6 days a week, Monday being the day off. It will be paid around 900 euros. “Is it rewarding, when you receive such a sum, for the person who does this job?”, he is offended. “I understand people who do not want to come to the Warenne base. The salary is too low and for the working conditions, an example: my colleague wears a white t-shirt while the regulations clearly specify that you must have a fluorescent yellow t-shirt. And we didn’t provide him…”
– MASSON Marie-Amelie
A job with responsibility
On the fee schedule, Geoffrey shrugs his shoulders a little. It came as backup for only five days : “I ask that young people come and see the job. Certainly there are responsibilities and supervision and care must be provided, but the place is quiet“, he assures before being cut by a bather who has stretched his leg too much.
“Young people“, they are often the ones who apply to watch the bathing places. “It’s much less burdensome to work as an ice cream parlor or in a business for a summer job, than to work as a lifeguard with a sword of Damocles above the head…“, advises Fatéhi Maskri.
The two lifeguards have already decided: they will not return to the site next year.