Simon Butler the UK Ski guide who has been fighting for his right to work as a ski instructor in France with UK qualifications, has finally had his prior convictions overturned.

I’ve been fighting the exact same case for MTB guides, on behalf of trailAddiction for a number of years with an identical legal argument (see legal details below, if you are interested).

Simon’s result is the landmark ruling we have been waiting for. The French persecution ends right here, right now. My own appeal case will be heard soon, and with this ruling in the bag, its now only a formality for my own charges also to be overturned.

In turn, this will create the legal precedent that the French can no longer fail to accept UK guiding qualifications as being automatically valid to work in France.

For the haters out there, I should point out that myself and other trailAddiction guides have already retrained in France and gained the French BPJEPS guiding qualification – so this ruling does not directly affect us since we already hold both the French and UK qualifications and therefore already hold identical qualifications to those of a French guide who trained in France.

This one is for all those guides, and want-to-be-guides, and also for the majority of our customers who would prefer to be guided by a top-notch, experienced UK guide rather than a local Frenchie!).

My point of principle remains and I still intend to fight it through to conclusion (even though one might argue this would allow easy competition from other UK operations who cannot legally guide in France, today). I’ve never been interested in that perspective – this has always been about respecting UK-qualified guides, and particularly those with many years of real mountain experience, as being equal to their European counterparts.

For anyone UK guide about to immediately dash out to France and look for a job, please beware – there are still some other hoops to jump through and there is a lot of paperwork that still needs to be submitted to the French authorities (all in French, too!). In time I hope to put a self-help guide out there on how to get through all this stuff, please bear with me.

Anyhow, here’s the news:
http://www.planetski.eu/news/8476

If you missed the previous background on all this and why it is huge news for UK guides everywhere, its all here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11007741/British-mountain-biking-instructor-faces-jail-in-France-over-work-ban.html

The breakdown of the legal arguments that were used in Simon’s case as well as my own (we share the same legal team, and its effectively the same argument!), are detailed here:
http://trailaddiction.com/les-arcs-mountain-bike-guides-and-guiding/legal-battle-right-work-france-uk-qualified-mountain-bike-guide/

I have no doubt that someone somewhere is going to have negative views about this ruling – so hey, lets hear them too. We do live in a democracy after all.

Congratulations, how different are the qualifications and skillets required between the Uk and French certificates (just curious)?

Fantastic news. This will really shake up the ski club gb too, who were complicit with the esf as I understand. Well done for your efforts.

I do of course mean basi not scgb

Until Brexit then you are buggered?

What were his prior convictions for?

My own appeal case will be heard soon, and with this ruling in the bag, its now only a formality for my own charges also to be overturned.

I hope your legal team are not instilling unnecessary confidence in you. It’s not unusual for two prima facie similar cases to come to different conclusions because of some subtle difference.

Whilst I agree with the principle at stake, that across the EU equally qualified people should be free to work. I think your choice of the phrase “local frenchies” is unfortunate and does your equality argument no good. I’m not sure how you demonstrate equality of competence though unless there is an overriding international governing body and there are no genuine local requirements.

“local frenchies”

I think you might have read that with too much daily mail influence 😉

I hope your legal team are not instilling unnecessary confidence in you.

It is the same legal team, so their experience with Simon Butler’s case can only be of help here too.

Why did the British Association of Snowsports Instructors not support his case?

Does seem a bit pointless, surely Brexit will make it impossible unless you take up citizenship

Fantastic news, OP saw your post on Facebook earlier. Keep up the fight.

Does seem a bit pointless, surely Brexit will make it impossible unless you take up citizenship

Post Brexit Europe will have many British citizens living and working there – pretty much exactly the same number as today. The French are also well aware Brits like to go on Brit orangised and run holidays. I think it’s highly likely there will be a reciprocal visa deal between UK and EU and economically / financially the most important thing is to be able to control in-work and out of work benefit entitlements – if you can’t claim either for 5 (?) years it reduces the draw factor undermining UK wages.

“I think you might have read that with too much daily mail influence”

I have no idea what that means?

“It is the same legal team, so their experience with Simon Butler’s case can only be of help here too.”

That may prove to be a niave assumption. The “other side” now know those arguments.

Glad you agree Jambalaya that freedom of movement is great!

Shame that Brexit will put a stop to it.

The French are also well aware Brits like to go on Brit orangised and run holidays.

The cynical would argue that was their motivation for stopping it in the 1st place. It’s EU legislation requiring recognition of equivalence of qualifications that has (IMU) been the basis of challenging the French position. Exiting the EU means they don’t have to carry that on.

Simon Butler thought me to Ski. Great news all round though!

Brexit shouldn’t be problem, when LePenn gets in and they vote on frexit, followed by Greece, Italy etc.. then we will have a trade deal oh… hang on… another EU

Exiting the EU means they don’t have to carry that on.

That will be much harder as this case will set precedence

timbud – Member
Exiting the EU means they don’t have to carry that on.

That will be much harder as this case will set precedence

Not really, if the precedent is just guides from other EU member states can guide in France.

In one respect good luck. In another I don’t like it. Its a fundamental and essential right that any country can protect its own. To suggest not is rather immoral. Assuming however that this is not the case then UK instructors should have training based on the place they work. All training and qualification should be universal not each country treated equally but with different training courses. Doubt I’ll be popular !

Its a fundamental and essential right that any country can protect its own. To suggest not is rather immora

so immigrants shouldnt be allowed to take a job a native could do?

sounds like a pretty sad, parochial view of the world

And its actually against EU laws that France signed upto in the first place.

Not really, if the precedent is just guides from other EU member states can guide in France.

As it was a Brit that won the case, then yes that does set a precedence.

That said the French will always (when have they not?) try to give Brits (in particular) a hard time doing anything in their country. Its a sad that they make it so restrictive and hard for us when there are far more of them here working legally and without any difficulty.

Presumably you will have to get working visa after Brexit, so much harder to work abroad for brits.
Foreign people in the UK do need to have UK qualifications if the job they want need those qualifications.

A lot of negative feelings here from the nationals of the country where you decide to live and work-doesn’t figure.

TImbud

The coverage quoted by the op states

“He said the law was very clear: in order to ban an EU citizen from working in France, the Ministry had first to prove that there was a substantial difference between the required qualifications in each country.”

The point of law seems to revolve around banning Eu citizens from instructing in France, come brexit we won’t be eu citizens (well I will :)) so the case may not be a precedent

But the specifics of this case are related to UK qualifications, not EU ones.
France is also famous for avoiding the opportunity to work with other EU countries regarding the unifying of outdoor/adventure coaching qualifications

“He said the law was very clear: in order to ban an EU citizen from working in France.”

Well I think that mis-states the issue – there is actually nothing about the nationality involved – the issue is which country issued the qualifications, whilst British nationals are more likely to qualify with British organisations there is nothing I am aware of to stop a French national qualifying here and then being inelegible to work in france (without extra steps) or a British National qualifying in France.

The point of law seems to revolve around banning Eu citizens from instructing in France, come brexit we won’t be eu citizens (well I will :)) so the case may not be a precedent

Well it will still be a precedent for people from all the other EU states (and I presume EEA/EFTA states).

poly – Member

The point of law seems to revolve around banning Eu citizens from instructing in France, come brexit we won’t be eu citizens (well I will :)) so the case may not be a precedent

Well it will still be a precedent for people from all the other EU states (and I presume EEA/EFTA states).

I agree my point, which I porbably haven’t explained clearly, is more that it won’t neccesarily be a precedent for GB instructors in a post-Brexit world.

the issue is which country issued the qualifications, whilst British nationals are more likely to qualify with British organisations there is nothing I am aware of to stop a French national qualifying here and then being inelegible to work in france (without extra steps) or a British National qualifying in France

Case in point, I knew quite a few French diving instructors who had trained with PADI and were unable to work in France. The French protectionism is for their qualifications, not necessarily French people.

My sister who lives in France and has dual nationality had do a French uni course for a year as her sport science degree from Loughborough wasn’t recognised by the French authorities.