Since 2003 there have been substantial obligations on private pool owners to secure the safety of their pool, either through an alarm system, fence or pool cover.

In a case that was recently heard in the French courts, a child of a next-door neighbour entered the garden of a couple who owned a pool, in which the child drowned.

Although the pool was equipped with a cover, it had been removed for pool cleaning and had not been replaced. The garden was also unfenced.

The parents of the deceased child brought an action for negligence against the owners, stating that they should not have left a swimming pool unprotected, even temporarily or, in the absence of the cover, unattended.

In the court of appeal the judges rejected the claim stating:"it was not for them to envisage the presence of a young child on their private property without the presence of his parents."

The plaintiffs appealed, when their claimed was similarly rejected by the Cour de Cassation, who stated that the owners of the pool "could not envisage the presence of a young child on their property, particularly without his parents, and that they could not be blamed for not having exercised constant surveillance of the pool and its surroundings or not having immediately replaced the protective cover."