An Australian lifestyle influencer has been forced to clarify her viral complaint about being refused entry to a public swimming pool in France after locals savaged her online.
Lauren Lakin, who shares travel content with her 54,000 Instagram followers, posted a reel this week detailing the awkward moment she, her husband Kit and their three children were turned away from a pool near their Airbnb.
The 40-year-old explained her husband and young son were not allowed to swim because they were wearing boardshorts, which are banned at many public pools in France under strict hygiene rules.
Kit then joked he had been told he would need to wear much tighter swimwear to be allowed in.
Lauren told her followers she had not known about the rule and warned other travellers to pack accordingly.
The video quickly took off, attracting hundreds of thousands of views before edging close to one million in less than 24 hours.
Australian travel influencer Lauren Lakin has been forced to clarify her viral complaint about being refused entry to a public swimming pool in France after locals savaged her online
Lakin, who shares travel content with her 54,000 Instagram followers, posted a reel this week detailing the awkward moment she, her husband Kit (pictured) and their three children were turned away from a pool near their Airbnb
But the post also sparked a ferocious response from French locals and other viewers, who told the family to stop complaining and respect the rules while travelling overseas.
‘Follow the rule when you come to a country,’ one person snapped.
‘Stay in Australia or go to Bali,’ a second said.
‘You are in France. Respect the rules or leave,’ a third wrote.
‘Should have done your research!’ another added.
Others defended the policy, saying it has long been standard practice at public pools across France.
Lauren later returned to social media to clarify the family had not technically been kicked out, but had simply decided against buying the required swimwear on the day.
‘It’s always the videos you least expect,’ she said.
The post also sparked a ferocious response from French locals and other viewers, who told the family to stop complaining and respect the rules while travelling overseas or go back to home
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‘Posted that just because I needed to get something up last night, and I had it sitting in my camera roll. I was like, “Right, I’ll just post that.” And then woke up to 250,000 views, and now it’s not even been 24 hours and it’s almost at a million views.’
Lauren admitted the viral clip had attracted some brutal responses.
‘There’s some very passionate people in the comments, as like with every viral video I’ve ever had,’ she said.
‘It somehow finds the dark side of the web, always.’
She said she usually has a positive experience on social media, but avoids reading comments when a post unexpectedly goes viral.
‘I don’t even look at the comments. Like, right now, all these comments are coming up, and I’m not even looking at them. I’m not responding,’ she said.
Lauren then clarified: ‘We didn’t actually get kicked out. We were told that the boys needed to buy the Euro swim shorts, which they did have available right there in a vending machine.’
However, the family decided not to purchase them because the pool was due to close shortly after they arrived.
‘The pool was actually closing at 4pm for an event, and it was like quarter to 3 or something by the time we actually arrived, so we weren’t gonna have that long anyway,’ she explained.
‘So we decided to not bother buying them. We’ll get them cheaper elsewhere, and then we’ll try the pool another day.’
Lauren insisted she was not criticising the French rule, but simply warning other tourists who may not be aware of it.
‘We do not have a problem with the rule, by the way,’ she said.
‘I was like, “That’s fine.” I was just letting people know that in case they didn’t know, because we didn’t know that that was a thing.’
She added it was not something she would have thought to research before leaving for a family holiday.
‘It’s not really something you Google prior to leaving for your holiday, especially because we probably wouldn’t even have gone to a public swimming pool had it not been right there,’ she said.
French public swimming pools commonly require men and boys to wear fitted swim briefs or tight trunks, while loose boardshorts are banned.
The rule is generally enforced on hygiene grounds, as boardshorts can be worn outside the pool and may bring dirt into the water.
