Can global warming and insurance jeopardize the profession of high mountain guide?
About sixty of the 1,500 guides active in France took part in a symposium on Monday in Chambéry, to sound the alarm and “pose in the public debate the changes undergone”.
President of the National Union of Mountain Guides (SNGM), Dorian Labaeye takes stock for 20 Minutes.
This 39-year-old guide, mainly based in Tarentaise in winter and in the Ecrins in summer, already does not hide his concern about the consequences of global warming in the Alps.
“Places are transformed,” he explains.
The glaciers at low altitude have lost several tens of meters in 30 years.
The seasonality of the practice changes because at the beginning of June, we have the snow conditions of mid-July.
We see that the melting of glaciers leads to rockslides.
A classic route like the Whymper corridor of the Aiguille verte (Haute-Savoie) is no longer accessible beyond July when it was traversed all summer in the 2000s.
Increasing amounts of compensation
A finding that has not led to a drop in activity for these high mountain guides, especially "since the Covid-19 revealed the general public's appetite for the outdoors".
The guides are aware of having “a reinforced role in the transmission of environmental awareness to customers”.
But their main concern on Monday was elsewhere, and it stems from an implacable observation: “Risk is part of our job”.
The perception and consequences of this notion of risk have evolved significantly in recent years, according to the SNGM.
If on the penal plan, the responsibility of the guides is rarely engaged, they note that they are more and more penalized on the problem of the insurance.
This responds to a principle of solidarity, in order to "protect the guide individually", to prevent him from finding himself alone with his insurance.
“The curve of our activity is increasing while the accident curve has been falling over the past few years, says Dorian Labaeye.
However, the number of claims settled by our joint professional indemnity insurance is on the rise, and the amounts of indemnities are increasingly high.
The lawyer Isabelle Monin-Lafin was thus present in Chambéry to enlighten the guides on this issue.
30% of the cost of guide insurance over two years
An example recently set a precedent in the eyes of the SNGM: “A business manager sprained his knee in the mountains.
As he had to cancel an appointment in Japan a few days later to sign a contract, he turned against our insurance, and the civil court sentenced us to more than 1 million euros in damages.
Dorian Labaeye, who mentions a 30% increase in the cost of insurance in two years, with an amount of 670 euros to be paid in 2022 for guides, looks at the thoughts following such a decision among high mountain guides. .
“Taking a guide is not all-risk insurance.
There is always an element of uncertainty that must be accepted.
If there is no obvious fault on the part of the guide, why is it up to us to fix that?
If we do not recognize the notion of consent, we risk making our profession more precarious, and even beyond that.
So what does this mean on the scale of the evolution of our society?
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“Do we want a world without the slightest risk?
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Intensive care anesthesiologist who came from Marseille to attend the Chambéry colloquium, Louis Fouché draws a parallel with the difficulties of access to insurance which also affected the medical world.
He perceives “a progressive Anglo-Saxonization” in France.
“It's a societal question: do we want a world without the slightest risk?
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Dorian Labaeye warns: “In the medium term, our group insurance model is threatened if nothing changes, because it is increasingly difficult to find an insurer”.
Author in 2020 of the book The Guide and the Prosecutor (Mont-Blanc editions), Erik Decamp (68) sums up the feeling that is growing within the profession: “The pleasure of doing this job as a guide does not depend on insurance, but the cost of our civil liability depends on that”.
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