A horse is waiting, parked in the parking lot, next to staff and customer cars. This Monday, March 14, Louis Geneix did not go to the brewery where he works on board his Clio but on the back of his mare, Eole.
He tells to France 3: “This morning, I came to work on horseback. It was the price of fuel that motivated my choice. There was a discussion with my boss: he had to change his car during the week and I told him to take an electric car, given the price of diesel. He told me that I was quiet because I had my horse. So I came on horseback.”
15 kilometers separate Lapte, where the 21-year-old server lives, from Yssingeaux, in Haute-Loire. “It took me less than an hour to come. I take the normal route and part of the greenway. My horse is well desensitized, he is used to cars. If it is foggy, I put a yellow vest and a phosphorescent mark on the horse’s tail.”
Along the road, motorists, surprised, slow down. Congratulate him, perhaps envy him. “Some people stopped to tell me that my approach was great. I did not expect that”says Louis Geneix.
Save money
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If the decision to climb on his horse to go to work started out as a joke, it is nonetheless a necessity. The young man, who receives 1,200 euros per month, wants to save money.
“I haven’t quantified the savings I’m going to make but I think it’s going to be pretty good. In December, I was doing about a month with 80 euros of diesel and there I doubled, or even more. car, I have reduced my journeys to the bare minimum. Seeing rising fuel prices is a situation that worries me.”
Louis Geneix even thought about quitting work: “I was wondering if I could go to work, see if it was going to be profitable, with the expenses we have to get there. That’s really the question I was asking myself. It’s not going to be profitable at all if we continue like this.”
new habit
An experience that the young man hopes to reproduce once a week, for the moment, depending on the weather and his schedule.
“From Thursday, I work lunchtimes and evenings. That makes me four rides. I will ride the rides once a week. This summer, I think I will come at least for the lunchtime services on horseback. For the evening, I won’t have a choice, I should take my car because I can’t come back at night on horseback”he explains to France 3.
An unusual way to get to work that took the young man out of his daily life: “It’s really nice. I got up and was much happier to go to work than usual.” Which has its advantages: “Besides, everything was frozen this morning, I didn’t have to thaw the windshield.”, jokes the Altiligerian. And its disadvantages…: “But frankly, it’s freezing on the horse, as there is no heating. It was better on the way back, I was too good, there was no wind.”
The young waiter makes a call: “I think it can give people ideas to use alternative means like cycling, scooters, rollerblades. There is also an ecological approach behind it all, to reduce our footprint. I do it for a reason valid. People talk a lot but don’t act.”
At work, from the brasserie, Louis Geneix gives regular glances at his mount. And if that if does not run on gasoline, she never misses her ration of pellets.
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