Bertrand de Monvallier, Co-Founder of Oxygène: His Story

Bertrand de Monvallier shaped the story of Oxygène, now OxySki, for thirty years. The third born and middle child of the Babaud de Monvallier family, he co-founded the very first school with his brother Pierre in La Plagne, and went on to help build a group of ski schools across the French Alps. This is his story.

A childhood between history and the mountains

Born in Limoges, Bertrand was a cheeky, mischievous boy who never took himself too seriously. Family debates around the dinner table, often about history and politics, sparked a lifelong admiration for military leaders such as Napoleon and Nelson. The family later moved to Collioure in the south of France, then settled in La Plagne, where his father bought a local estate agency. Bertrand learned to ski in his early teens while away at boarding school. School itself held little appeal next to skiing, and he left without his baccalaureate. His father gave him 500 francs and sent him to England for a year, where he worked as a kitchen porter and learned English. For his military service, he chose a longer posting that took him to Djibouti, in East Africa, before returning home to France.

Becoming an instructor

Back in civilian life, Bertrand followed his older brother Pierre into ski instructing and qualified in 1987. He held a firm belief that anyone could learn to ski well, given the right technique, equipment and patience, a philosophy that stayed with him his whole career. After a spell with the ESF, the two brothers, both fiercely independent, set out on their own. In the early 1990s, Bertrand spent a season at Club Med in Zinal, Switzerland, to study their teaching methods, and famously skied a couloir the manager had put off limits. He was nearly sacked for it, until his colleagues threatened to resign in solidarity.

Founding Oxygène

In 1992, Pierre and Bertrand set up their own ski school, partnering with Ski Beat, a British tour operator arriving in La Plagne, and soon after with Mark Warner. It was a chance to serve English speaking skiers, a market the ESF had left largely untapped. The early years were hard fought: a meeting point, a snow garden, the right to fly the Oxygène flags, promotion from the tourist office, all won through constant negotiation against the dominant ESF. When Mark Warner expanded into Val d'Isere, a second Oxygène school opened there under Pierre, while Bertrand stayed in La Plagne, the brothers' different characters better suited to running separate sites. The first instructors Bertrand hired were misfits who hadn't found their place elsewhere, and he gave them the chance to become the best version of themselves.

A family affair, a growing group

Oxygène was always a family business. From the start, Bertrand's mother, Francoise, handled bookings and paid the instructors. In 1994, his half brother Julien asked for a job so he could stay in La Plagne, and Bertrand put him in charge of the tiny rental shop, twenty pairs of skis in total. Julien later trained as an instructor, teaching with Oxygène from 1998, and opened the Belle Plagne school in 2012. His twin sister, Manu, joined that same year and went on to run sales for the La Plagne school. Bertrand married Gaelle and they had three children, Sixtine, Maxime and Apolline. When their father died in 2002, his wish that the family stay together fell to Bertrand to uphold. In 2016, Pierre and Bertrand bought Magic in Motion, a ski school in the Three Valleys founded the same year as Oxygène by Lulu and Eric, and Bertrand went on to identify further opportunities, buying another school in 2018 and partnering with Starski the following year. By the time of his death, Oxygène had grown to fourteen ski schools across the French Alps, and Bertrand hoped to keep growing the group and skiing well into his seventies.

Illness, met with courage

In April 2021, Bertrand caught COVID19. Headaches and difficulty speaking followed soon after, and doctors diagnosed a brain tumour. He underwent surgery, then chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy, staying positive throughout. He passed away on 25 February 2022, aged 52. True to form, Bertrand had planned everything in advance, down to written instructions for his own funeral. Hundreds gathered for a two hour ceremony at the church in Macot, with readings, music and eulogies celebrating his life. He was laid to rest in the family plot near Limoges.

What comes next

Bertrand will be remembered as a loving son, brother, husband, father and friend, for his love of history, his rebellious streak and his ability to see the best in the people around him. To discover more of that story, read about our history and the ski school in La Plagne he founded.