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On the occasion of the Outdoor Festival 06 in the Alpes-Maritimes, Paris Match met Guillaume Néry, four-time freediving world champion. The athlete wishes to transmit his passion and raise awareness of the beauty of nature. Maintenance.
Paris Match. Freediving in depth, this solitary practice brings you intimately into contact with nature. Why did you decide to transmit this discipline, which remains an experience with a deeply individual feeling?
Guillaume Nery. I think it’s really linked to my Nice education. All the modern apnea that exists today started in the bay of Villefranche, near Nice, just after the film Le Grand Bleu. Initially, I arrived in a group where I discovered a practice that was not at all like that of the film. There was a collective idea: everyone goes on the boat, we go a little for ourselves but above all to help others. That’s how I learned and very naturally, we kept that spirit. Today, what interests me is to promote this collective practice in many different ways: making films, teaching, writing books… Artistic practice and words fascinate me! I also set up an apnea center in Villefranche where we welcome beginners to dive. All means are good for people to discover and say to themselves: “I want to try! »
Read also: Guillaume Néry: “Our relationship with nature is a relationship with ourselves”
What messages do you want to convey with all your productions, films, books, photos…?
First of all, I want to inspire people to connect to simple things in nature. Me, I try to be a voice of the sea. Through images, texts, I want to convince people to go and discover apnea, because by going there, you automatically create another link, you become actor. People are changed. They like the environment and realize the fragility and the drama that is being played out. Today, we have to go beyond raising awareness, into militancy and activism: signing petitions, going to the streets… That has to change! But the first step is to say “come and see! and people will automatically be convinced.
Read also: In a swimsuit, the freediver Guillaume Néry succeeds in an abyssal and icy dive to 105 m
In 2015 your career was brutally interrupted by an accident, and you canceled your participation in the world championship in 2019 at the last moment. What changed at that time?
You should know that I never considered my career as made up of separate blocks. When I started making films in 2010, I was still doing a lot of competitions until 2015. But the moment of the accident was a final point that allowed me to focus more on this idea of transmitting, which had already begun to germinate. It gave me more energy to shoot One Breath Around The World and write the book A plein souffle. Three years later, I started going back in depth, doing local competitions. I missed that contact. But the approach was different: my goal was no longer to break a world record. Today, I continue to dive but without having this objective. I integrate depth not as a goal, but as part of a whole journey that feeds me day by day.
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The practice of apnea today is a way of life
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You collaborated with your ex-wife Julie Gauthier on many productions that combine documentary and art. How has it influenced your view of apnea?
We built these projects together. When I started to participate in productions in 2010, she had never held a camera in her life! [Rires] We embarked on this project innocently, we thought the idea was fun. Then these images had a real impact. It overwhelmed us and then gave us confidence in the creativity that we could have. We fed each other on our ideas. This complementarity can be seen in the image: Julie has a gift for manipulating the camera, creating new angles of view and I have my way of evolving in the water. It’s an alchemy that has always worked well. We have a creative universe and we try to explore lots of avenues!
Your daughter, Maï-Lou, is 10 years old today. Does she follow the same path as her father?
Of course, but from there to making a career out of it, I have no idea. It will be up to her to find out! Above all, we are very careful not to put any pressure on him. She plays piano and Việt Võ Đạo. When I go to Polynesia two or three months a year, she comes with me and every day, after school, she goes into the water! I was just a bit harsh with swimming from the age of five, but it was to make sure it was “aquatic”! Today, she no longer swims, but when she comes into the water with me, she can follow me everywhere!
How do you apprehend apnea today?
The practice of apnea today is a way of life. No matter what time of year, I know I’m going to have this urge and need to get in the water. I like the performance too, but above all I want to go underwater to feel good, to refocus. Freediving is what allows me to have the simplest possible relationship with the world. Today, we have developed lives completely disconnected from nature. Whatever the frenzy of everyday life, when I go underwater, I get back into the right relationship with the world. If I have that, then I can accept everything else.