About us > Our history

From yesterday to today

In the beginng…

In 1937 Georges Blanchon, Emile Allais, Charles Diebold, Paul Gignoux and Léo Lagrange founded
the Ecole Française de Ski, the forerunner of the Ecole du Ski français.

It was Georges Blanchon, general secretary of the French Ski Federation (FFS) who presented the plan for the School and the single skiing technique at the FFS congress in October 1937.

A second proposal by Georges Blanchon regarding ski instruction was also passed unanimously; this was the teaching method known as the "Ecole française".

French world champion Emile Allais was appointed technical director of the Ecole française.

Instructor training was linked with this organisation and from then on instructors received a national diploma on qualifying. The instructors for the ski schools were appointed from among those qualifying through a competitive examination.

However, this was not an attempt to create a monopoly. Consequently, any schools that did not want to join the new organisation were perfectly able to continue to operate, without the benefit of the major publicity surrounding the "Ecole française du ski". And they no longer received the patronage of the FFS.

It was on 15th October, at the founding general assembly of the Ecole nationale du ski français at the casino in Aix les Bains in the presence of none other than the minister for sport Léo Lagrange, that it was announced that 300,000 francs would be released (the equivalent of 45,735 euros, a considerable amount of money).

Charles Diebold, who set up the first ski school in Val d’Isère (not counting the Vosges ski school), considered that unifying ski instruction in France was an urgent necessity.

During the Second World War, ski instruction remained under the aegis of the French Ski Federation. An official regulation issued by the Vichy government on 7th November 1940 fixed the principles and precepts by which instructors were obliged to abide.

 …and then…

From 1945 to today, the size of the Ecole du Ski Français has increased from 200 instructors in 41 schools to 16,000 instructors in 250 offices: a 80-fold increase in the number of instructors.

Today, the Ecole du Ski Français is the largest ski school in the world, with 2,000,000 pupils taking 800,000 tests every year.

Year	Schools	Instructors
1945…	41 schools	200 instructors
1955…	58 schools	800 instructors
1965…	105 schools	1.750 instructors
1975…	195 schools	5.500 instructors
1985…	210 schools	9.600 instructors
1990…	220 schools	10.700 instructors
1995…	250 ESF offices	12.000 instructors
2006	250 ESF offices	15 600 instructors
2007	250 ESF offices	16 000 instructors