Climbers from France

Sébastien Bouin is a sport climber from the south of France. While being an exceptionally good all round climber, he is known for his extreme endurance climbing and establishing many hard first ascents. For example, his route Nordic Marathon in Flatanger takes in over 130m while climbing the out of the cave.

Charles Albert is one of the worlds best and most particular boulderers. Charles' ability is hard to compare to others due to how he chooses to climb: typically without the use of climbing shoes or kneepads. In this style Charles is undoubtedly a master with no one repeating any of his boulders in the the same style as he climbed them.

Charles is notable for his hard first ascents, particularly in Fontainebleau: La Révolutionnaire Assis (8C+), Hypothèse Assis (8C+), Bélial (8C) and Freerider (8C). In 2018 Charles did the first ascent of No Kpote Only in which he proposed the grade of 9A, however this was downgraded by both Ryohei Kameyama and Nico Pelorson.

In 2023 Charles did the first ascent of L’Ombre du Voyageur for which he proposed 9A after spending 60 sessions to complete the problem. Pietro Vidi repeated the boulder in 2025 using wildly different beta and gear to Charles, suggesting 8B+.

In March 2026 Charles sent his 8 year project Charlatan. Charles did not suggest a grade at the time of the ascent but has previously suggested it as 9A.

Lucien Martinez:

In Font, many times I saw Charles Albert do things so out of this world I would have called them impossible without having been a witness. Like flash FAs or in a handful of runs of 8A on a move that no one else can get anywhere near, or 7B slabs in trainers by simply annihilating miserable grains of sand with his nails… [1]

References

[1] https://fanatic-climbing.com/interview-lucien-martinez-irreductible-acharne-interview-lucien-martinez-inveterate-and-tenacious/

[2] Reel Rock 16: Barefoot Charles https://www.redbull.com/int-en/episodes/reel-rock-s8-e2

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVSC9vIb-PU

[4] https://www.8a.nu/news/qa-with-charles-albert-6net8

[5] Sessions with Emil Abrahamsson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6Gvb8f6S-k

[6] Interview with Magnus Midtbø (2026) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkhh2ovhMQA

Leading French rock and competition climber of the 1980s to mid-1990s. Tribout travelled extensively and pushed climbing standards both in France and the USA.

Tribout started climbing in Fontainebleau and Le Saussois. Visiting southern France often with fellow Parisians like Marc and Antoine Le Menestrelhe competed for new routes and early repeats with local climbers like Patrick Edlinger. He enjoyed the rivalries he provoked celebrating his combative approach with route names like Badman (8b+). His competitive nature made him an early adopter of the practice of working routes extensively and sometimes strayed into enhancing or manufacturing hold, a practice he now decries.

References

[1] https://www.grimpavranches.com/les-plus/biographies/jean-baptiste-tribou/

[2] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Tribout

Nico Pelorson is a prolific developer in the Fontainebleau scene and further afield. He is somewhat infamous for his ascents of Soudain Seul 9A and No Kpote Only 9A, where he subsequently downgraded both boulders to 8C+ and 8C respectively.

Nico is also known for his interesting music talents, being behind the masterpiece Mini Drill and the legendary track for Adam Ondra's Soudain Seul video.

Lucien Martinez:

A last one for the road. In the 65° overhang of Blocage, the small ‘gym’ in Font, Nico Pelorson opened a boulder (red holds) with a move of pure crimping and core strength that seemed to me not to work. Yet Nico managed to do it, and even adding the two moves prior. It was around the time he made Big Island sit [Soudain Seul] and he was a monster. The climbers who passed by the gym and saw his boulder thought it was so impossible as to be a joke. [1]

References

[1] https://fanatic-climbing.com/interview-lucien-martinez-irreductible-acharne-interview-lucien-martinez-inveterate-and-tenacious/

[2] Interview with http://escalade9.wifeo.com/, November 2015 http://escalade9.wifeo.com/nicolas-pelorson.php

[3] https://bleau.info/profiles/nicolas.pelorson.2

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBS_nOUZUFY

A pioneer of hard bouldering in Fontainebleau, throughout the 1980s and '90s Godoffe established dozens of the forest's classic modern testpieces.

His ascent of C'Était Demain (8A) in 1984 set a new level for bouldering in Europe. Coming just a year after L'Abbé Résina (7C), the climb was a significant step up in difficulty. With its difficulty concentrated into just a couple of hard moves, it is still regarded as a hard 8A and may have only been flashed once (Dave Graham, 2000).

In 1993 he raised the bar again, establishing Fatman, a contender for the first 8B in the forest. His relentless pursuit of both quality and difficulty saw him projecting what would later become The Big Island (8C), though a successful ascent eluded him.

In the early '00s Godoffe pioneered the art of indoor routesetting. His books on the subject are essential reading for those in the trade.

Success in climbing is just the tip of the iceberg. The most important thing for me is how to deal with such an important passion and also the rest of life. I am lucky to have had 5 children, and none of them never ever climbed, so at home at least I'm just a human trying to surf on the waves of life. This is a way harder than the most difficult boulder I ever climbed. [1]

References

[1] Interview in The Project Magazine (2017) https://www.theprojectmagazine.com/features/2017/5/13/jacky-godoffe-interview

[2] Bleau https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIreNKro7QU

[3] https://escaladepanorama.htm-fr.com/francais/bleau/itw/bl_jg-interview.htm

References

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTVFRm5kMeE

Camille is a French boulderer whom resides in the infamous Fontainebleau. He is well known for his 70+ session siege on Soudain Seul 9A/V17 in which he repeated The Big Island 8C/V15, 43 times.

More recently Camille has picked up a number of 8C/V15 ascents and has had over 100 session s on Imothep Assis which is believed to be around 9A/V17.

References

[1] https://bleau.info/profiles/camille.coudert

Medji Schalack is a competition climber from Chambery in France.

References

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd4C6haxPDY

Oriane Bertone is one of the most successful comp climbers of the 2020s and represented France at the Paris Olympics in 2024. She was also a Bleausard child prodigy, ticking many of the forest’s hard classics, and was the youngest person to climb 8B+ with her ascent of Golden Shadow in Rocklands, aged 12.

Bertone was born in Nice and grew up on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean in a family that loved the outdoors:

When you are a child, you just want to climb everywhere in trees and walls. That is what was fun about it. It was just natural. I started climbing outside and being outside just felt amazing. I've always liked nature, and we used to go hiking all the time with my parents.

Having dominated the youth comps in 2019, in 2020, aged 15, she focused again on rock where highlights included the first ascents of Satan i Helvete (Bas) (8B+) and Panonoramix et les Cyclopes (8c). The following year, the focus returned to comps, placing second in two boulder world cups, but she still found time to make a rapid repeat of Super Tanker (8B+).

Over the next five years Bertone racked up over a dozen IFSC podium finishes, with her first win in Prague in 2023. In 2024 she made the finals of the Paris Olympics, placing 8th. In 2026 she won the inaugural Pro Climbing League bouldering event in London and made the first female ascent of Gecko (assis) (8B+).

Her younger brother Max Bertone is also a notable comp and outdoor climber.

References

[1] Interview with Arthur Delicque for Grimper, August 2024 https://www.grimper.com/news-une-tisane-oriane

[2] The Ascent, a 2025 documentary about Oriane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL8HmtR--Fk

[3] https://www.olympics.com/en/news/french-sport-climber-oriane-bertone-2023-interview

References

[1] https://www.facebook.com/climbing.in.the.80s/photos/a.270388289694020/446421228757391

References

[1] http://www.grimporama.com/francais/bleau/itw/bl_sf-interview.htm

Prolific Fontainebleau developer with over one hundred first ascents in the area.

Fred Rouhling was a controversial figure during the late '90s and early 2000s. With a string of hard ascents in a relatively off-the-beaten track location there were many people who doubted his ascents, not helped by the fact that some of his key routes were unashamedly chipped (for example De L'Autre Côté du Ciel). He is notable for a particularly dynamic style of climbing which would be familiar in a comp today, but was unusual at the time; routes such as Hugh (9a) were manufactured to create this style.

His route Akira was particularly contentious. When he made the first ascent he gave it the then unheard of grade of 9b at a time when 9a+ didn't exist.

A 2005 profile by Pete Ward [2] helped to dispel some of the more outlandish myths, and many of his routes have now received repeats which confirm their quality and difficulty. However, his route Akira did receive a notable downgrade to 9a after being repeated by Sébastien Bouin and Lucien Martinez.

References

[1] Interview with Relais Vertical Part 1 https://youtu.be/xqk0nQCNtpY

[2] Interview with Relais Vertical Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enFSnkF25eI

[3] The Other Side of Fred Rouhling by Pete Ward, 15th June 2012 https://www.climbing.com/people/fred-rouhling/

[4] Interview with camptocamp.org, October 2008 https://www.camptocamp.org/articles/143240/fr/interview-de-fred-rouhling-21-10-2008-

[5] https://open.spotify.com/episode/4T8j5taHKyu11HnWMKvxWT?

[6] Interview for On The Edge Issue 102, page 40

Prolific Bleausard boulderer and alpinist, breaking new ground in both disciplines.

In bouldering he established the first 7C+ in the forest with Le Surplomb de la Mée (Pre-Break) in 1983, and had a claim to the first 8A+ with L'Aplat Du Gain (now 8A) in 1988. In 1987, he succeeded in climbing all problems in Fontainebleau graded 7A or above. [2]

However, his alpine achievements are even more astounding:

Another champion of Bleau and beyond in the 1980s: Alain Ghersen. His personal obsession was to statically climb every move that others tackled dynamically. No more dynos — a technique commonly used in Bleau on boulders where bad falls are unlikely. Unlike Jérôme Jean-Charles, Alain Ghersen — now a mountain guide and instructor at ENSA — is a world-class alpinist. His solo ascents in the Mont Blanc massif, especially his link-ups in the late 1980s, left a lasting mark on the history of alpinism.

In an unpublished profile of Pierre Allain ('Pierre Allain, or the Prevalence of Pleasure, April 2015'), Alain Ghersen recounts a baroque link-up from the summer of 1987: a Paris–Bleau–Saussois–Chamonix journey starting from one of the most renowned routes in the forest, Le Carnage at Bas-Cuvier. Alain Ghersen: “In just over 40 hours, I linked together ascents of Carnage (7B) in Bleau, Bidule (8a+) in Saussois, and the full Peuterey Ridge on Mont Blanc — all solo.”

In the summer of 1990, Alain Ghersen once again demonstrated the extraordinary technique and endurance he had developed in Bleau on its most extreme circuits. Solo, without any self-belaying, and in a single continuous push, Ghersen climbed the Directe Américaine on the Drus, the Walker Spur on the Grandes Jorasses, and the full Peuterey Ridge. Three historic, major alpine routes — it’s hard to top that. [1]

References

[1] Modica, Godoffe, 'Fontainebleau: 100 ans d'escalade', p.232, Les Editions Mont Blanc, 2017

[2] OTE Guide, 1997

[3] https://www.instagram.com/p/DLzw88ZNrZ2/

Loïc Zehani is a French sport climber.

Notably, a large majority of his hardest ascents are first ascents and many are at his home crag of Orgon. The crag itself is also somewhat controversial for containing a large number of manufactured routes.

In late 2023 Zehani claimed a controversial repeat of Artaburu (9b) in Margalef, with the video he posted featuring a tight belay which others claimed may have assisted the ascent. He later appeared to withdraw his claim. [2]

References

[1] https://www.8a.nu/news/loic-zehani-49337

[2] https://gripped.com/news/controversial-belay-on-a-5-15-causes-uproar/