• The government's pension reform plan, which aims to raise the legal retirement age, has been hotly contested since January.
  • In France, it is possible to work until the end of one's days. However, an employee in the private sector may be forced by his employer to stop his activity from the age of 70. Ditto in the public sector from the age of 67.
  • At 73 years old, including 54 years teaching skiing, Jean-Louis Fugairon, ESF instructor continues by "passion" to hurtle down the slopes of the resort of Ax-3-Domaines, in Ariège, while advising his students on the famous stick plant.

"Retirement, to do what? Go to other countries? See how people are? Here I see people from all social classes, from all countries, whom I would never have met if I had not been an instructor. At 73 years old, including 54 teaching skiing at the resort of Ax-3-Domaines, Jean Louis Fugairon is not about to hang up his spatulas and poles.

Not by ideology. The pension reform does not leave him indifferent. "At the age I am, I couldn't care, but no. I understand some professions, there are very hard jobs that deserve to leave earlier. Because if it is to retire at 64 and go directly to the hospital, it is not worth it, "says without mincing his words the dashing Ariégeois. Yet he cannot bring himself to do so. It must be said that for seven decades, the Pyrenees have been anchored in its genes. His valley too, where he learned to ski around the age of five on a single wooden spatula, sharing with his brother the pair his parents had paid them. Hurtling down the snowy slopes of Bonascre that had to be climbed on foot, at a time when the resort was not yet born.

"The day I don't see it passing"

But if he still puts on his skis every morning, despite problems with arteries that could have restrained him, it is above all because he is passionate. "If I keep going, it's because I love teaching. Where I'm happiest is with beginners, that's where you see the progress. As with someone who has never seen snow and who two hours later knows how to go down a green slope. The day I do not see it pass, I do 8 hours and I do not even realize it, "he says with a smile, his eyes sparkling, brightening his tanned face by weeks spent on the snowy peaks.

Sitting across from him, Florence and her two daughters, Margot and Mila, with whom he has lunch, nod. For years, he has been teaching them how to go down the slopes, to improve their skidding, "the most important movement in skiing". And every year, it is Jean-Louis that these faithful students ask for their private lessons taken in the French ski school of Ax. A school that he once directed and to which he remains attached. "I started red, I'm going to die red," he jokes, referring to the ESF's specific colour.

If at his high hours, his schedule was full every day of the season, he has now reduced the sail a little. Willy nilly. "I'm in what they call the intergenerational pact. At 62, you are told that you have to put your foot down to make way for young people. When this measure passed, it made people cringe. But, in ski schools, during the holidays there is anyway work for everyone, outside the holidays, we arrange, "he says. Hours that complement a little the small monitor pension of 456 euros per month that he already receives.

Fisherman, hunter, mountaineer, mushroom maker

But Jean-Louis is not just a ski instructor. Out of season, he held for thirty-three years a large café in the center of the village with his parents, was president of the departmental fishing federation. And since 1977, almost continuously, he is elected for the municipality of Ax-les-Thermes, delegate "to the resort". So when he takes a step, he always falls on someone he knows. At the restaurant, we know his habits by heart, his little pleasure at the end of the meal, a pancake with Nutella.

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And when he's not on his boards in winter, he's hiking trails in his valley. "I am a fisherman, hunter, mountaineer, mushroom maker, I love nature. I'm not a traveler, I don't know what to do on vacation. My holiday is here, in these mountains. In summer I do fishing animations for the little ones. In September it is the opening of the hunt and in spring the morels, "lists this single without children, far from the image of Popeye played by Thierry Lhermitte in the Bronzés go skiing.

Jean-Louis looks a little more like Fernand Bonnevie, who played Jean-Claude Dusse's ski instructor, made famous by his famous line "flexion, pole stitch, extension". This native of Val d'Isère, who has registered the planted stick in the pantheon of the trade, retired at 80 years old. Jean-Louis remembers meeting him a long time ago, during a challenge of instructors. Today, these national competitions are over for him. But not its regional version of the Pyrenees. He already has 50 participations under his belt and he does not intend to retire on that side either.

  • Pension reform 2023
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