To date, I have accumulated 46 years of collaboration and work with the various organisations successively responsible for logistical support to French polar research. Now retired from public service, I spent the greater part of my career (37 years) as an employee of the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), seconded to the IPEV (Institut Polaire Français Paul-Émile Victor). This organisation is responsible for supporting French scientific research in polar environments. Each austral summer was an opportunity for unique and rewarding missions, regularly prompting me to question my own practices, trial new methods and constantly seek ways to improve on existing ones.

As a mechanical engineer by training, I joined the permanent staff of the French Polar Expeditions (EPF) following a winter-over at Dumont d’Urville (a 15-month stay, from 1979 to 1981). From then on, and until the end of my career, I travelled to the field every austral summer to oversee logistical and technical operations. I was appointed Technical Manager of Dumont d’Urville station in 1985. In 1991, following the establishment of the IPEV, I continued in this role while taking on responsibility for the Concordia project, as well as the development of a reliable transport system between the coast and the site of the new station — the traverse. In 1996, I was appointed head of all French logistics in Antarctica. By the time I left in 2018, I had taken part in 40 of the 74 traverses organised since 1993, both scientific and logistical, and had accumulated nearly 15 years of field presence.

I was fortunate to be entrusted with several rewarding technical projects, and to have seen them through with the support of a team that gradually grew to 7 permanent staff at the IPEV and 70 contract personnels in the field, covering all aspects of logistics and technical operations.

My expertise developed and diversified across several areas, in particular:

  • Managing the division responsible for French logistics and infrastructure, as well as leading the annual summer campaigns in Antarctica.
  • Developing original technical solutions for the renovation and annual maintenance of the Dumont d’Urville wintering station on the Adélie Land coast.
  • Fossil fuel energy installations and energy efficiency systems associated with the use of renewable energies.
  • The design and construction of purpose-built structures adapted to the Antarctic environment.
  • Overseeing the Concordia project: design, construction and ongoing management of this new continental station on the Antarctic high plateau, carried out in cooperation with Italy and delivered under tight constraints.
  • Logistical support for deep ice core drilling (3,200 m), conducted from 1998 to 2003, which enabled the extraction of ice cores reconstructing climate change over the last million years.
  • The design and development of specialised transport equipment and the organisation of logistical and scientific traverses across the Antarctic ice sheet.
  • Conducting operations on the Antarctic coast and from the relief vessel (refer to sea ice operations).



Drawing on this experience, I established myself as a consulting engineer upon retiring from public service. I am well placed to offer my expertise to any French or international organisation, public or private, looking to develop or strengthen operations in challenging environments, of which polar regions are the defining example.

The Concordia project was of course a defining moment in both my professional and personal life. Few people have had the opportunity to build a continental station on the Antarctic continent, and I was fortunate to be among that small number. The project involved first establishing a philosophy — a holistic set of specifications — then producing and managing adapted technical solutions for the station itself and, the two being interdependent and interactive, for the associated traverse system, where everything remained to be invented.

From the first line on the drawing board, the project spanned sixteen years. Alongside the station’s construction, it was also necessary to provide transport and logistical support for the deep ice-core drilling programme. All of this was the result of the work of around ten Franco-Italian team members. The station has since celebrated 21 years of service. One aspect that could have been improved is undoubtedly communication — for alongside the know-how, the art of making it known is a discipline we surely neglected.