Vacations: beach flags that meet standards

The size and height of flags used to mark supervised swimming areas, the color of lifeguards' uniforms, signage for safety stations, risk level vocabulary, pictograms for water and nautical activities... An AFNOR document provides an overview of beach signage. Keep this in mind while sunbathing!

Voluntary standards are part of your everyday life, even during the holidays... But not to annoy you: for comfort, safety, and mutual understanding! Here is another example at the start of the 2020 summer holidays, with a document requested by the Ministry of Sports entitled " AFNOR Spec X50-001 ", which reviews signage for swimming areas. Objective: review everything that is being done in this area, with the aim of developing the regulatory framework towards greater harmonization and understanding, for greater safety , summarizes Florent Giraud, the AFNOR project manager who assisted the stakeholders (around twenty) in drafting this document.

Bathing areas: complementarity between standards and decrees

Strictly speaking, the document is not a standard, but it recommends signage principles that could one day become the standard. The normative approach has already been used in this field, with the international reference ISO 20712 on "water safety signals and beach safety flags." However, this has not been adopted in France, which has preferred the regulatory route: Decree No. 62-13 of January 8, 1962 sets out the main characteristics that signage equipment used on beaches must comply with, in particular the famous red, orange, and green flags. The format and color of flags are regulated, but not additional features such as information panels at first aid stations, the dress code for lifeguards, or the demarcation of areas for water sports such as surfing or kitesurfing. Today, these signs vary depending on whether you are swimming in Biarritz or Dunkirk. , continues Florent Giraud.

The document therefore proposes a harmonized signaling system for swimmers and other aquatic and nautical activities, paving the way for regulatory changes while retaining the three-color principle. Expected in 2021 to update the 1962 decree, a new decree could thus incorporate elements of the AFNOR Spec X50-001 to redefine the swimming area and codify signage outside the area to simplify information by listing the activities covered.