What is #CIVLRESIGN with Julien Garcia

Guest: It's always the same how far the community is ready to go to hide this accident, how far the organizer will go. What I believe is that this accident of Bram is highly controversial. And my point is, no matter what the responsibility could be, the liability issue could be, an organizer should always communicate about what happened in the competition.

It's my main goal to let the people know that something went completely off the track. So to begin with, what exactly is Civil Resign? This movement is not targeting any individual. This movement is just willing that the institution acknowledge a fail, a massive institutional fail,

And we need to enforce some new principles, new ways of thinking, new processes to stop these institutions failing. Julian Garcia, thank

Aninder: you so much for joining us at Paragliding Atlas. I just want to get things going right away because past two, three days, our community has seen a lot of talk on pretty much the same topic by quite a few notable names. And recently, civil resign has been, you can say, trending in a way where a lot of people are talking about it and supporting it. So to begin with, what exactly is civil resign? Thanks for having me first and in there.

Guest: It's not the first time and I appreciate a lot of your work. You know it. CVLO Resign is first CVL, is the institution that govern paragliding and hang gliding for the FII. So it's Sportive Discipline Commission of the FII, which is the Aeronautical International Federation. And this CVL is basically in charge of the development of a sport, organizing category one and event and events. giving the guidelines for activities, both in gliders and paragliders. And CIVL Resign is, as it's stated, is a movement to push for change into this institution and to push for a resignation of the Bureau. I am a French delegate for CIVL. I mean, I'm the representative at CIVL for France. And I thought at first

it was after this World Championship. It's It was way too much. So I got in touch with my federation. We discussed some more and we came to the conclusion that the only call we had is to ask for a massive change, a massive shock into this institution. So I'll try to explain it better. Resignation. First, it's super important to understand that when you resign from some position, it is not meant to be forever. It does not mean you will disappear from the sport and you won't ever return. take any position in the activity. It's not that at all. And this movement is not targeting any individual specifically. Namely, this movement is just willing that the institution acknowledge a fail, which is basically

the case. I hope we will discuss it more. But a big fail, a massive institutional fail, and we need to enforce some necessary new

Aninder: principle new ways of thinking new process to stop this institution failing so this is what it is about i understand so basically it's like we have done certain set of things in a certain way under a certain set of people and given them a trust and we are not really happy with the results that have been delivered and now maybe it's time for a change that's a fair point i believe yeah so we asked for new election for this you

Guest: obviously need to resign because then there is no point waiting two more years in this kind of setup but most of all it's not new election and it's not about getting the people fired after a resignation you can apply for the new election as well even the same board the same people same everything but what really need to change is first put yourself on a new election because the things were massive And second, we need to make clear that we have to build some new process. And we discussed three main things in our letter, resignation letter, three big principles that we would love to see applied into this commission. Yeah, we'll get into that, Julian. For the perspective of our Let's say non-racing pilots,

Aninder: let's say pilots who go out and fly the sport for the love of flight, who are not a part of the circuit or are well-versed with this. And to highlight this a bit more, I would like to share my screen with you for a second. And we can start with there. Are you able to see my screen, Julia? Yeah, I'm seeing it, yeah. Right. So basically, this is an Instagram poll from a post of, I think, he's a Canadian pilot or something? UK pilot. UK, yeah. Fairly regular member in the competition circuit. And he had a post on 22nd, I believe. This is a day after Paul Tucker's. I think

his was on 21st. And this post... has all the condolences and everything. But what made me really sad about reading this is that the undersigned in this post, Julian, are pilots, team leaders, and team doctors of the 2025 World Championship. So my question here is that how did it reach a stage where at the pinnacle of the competition in paragliding, the professional set of communication is coming in from the participants that are that is pilots leaders and the doctors with personal initiative and the official body has been silent what how did this happen try to tell you unfortunately this pilot had an accident went into an hospital he didn't die on the spot and We spent one week with a

Guest: lot of uncertainty. And finally, unfortunately, Bram passed away. It was after the championship. We celebrated because there was uncertainty. We still were not sure. In a way, it's always the same. The culture is this way. So we go home and then Maxim, you know, suddenly realized, but come on, now this is getting ridiculous. We have the notification that he actually passed away. We really need to organize some kind of comment and some actual saying over this. So he went on the group, pilot group and asked if organizer would provide something and nothing came and Then it was even stated that FIE would never do this because it would be a first time. So we got, I will tell you, we got upset

with this. And Maxime started to work on a communicate on his own. Theo from Greece changed a couple of editing, the words, et cetera, the letters. And then we just decided that we would post this anyway. So it's what Stan did, Maxime did, I did, and many others. And suddenly, the institution was kind of overwhelmed by what we did, and they decided to post stuff again. But I will tell you the background of this. Unfortunately, what I believe is that this accident of Bram is highly controversial. And there is tons of reasons why an institution would love to not speak about it. And I don't get into much detail, but some people at least, I will stay very neutral, some people... believe that

the goal field was poorly chosen, poorly set this day. Some concern was raised with safety committee on the mid-director as well. And then suddenly we still have an accident. Okay, it's hard because it will affect an organizer, it will affect the community. But on the other hand, it's also affecting a family. So my point is, no matter what the responsibility could be, the liability issue could be, an organizer should always communicate about safety. what happened in a competition. Then there is this communication about the dead. Of course, it's important. We had 10 accidents or I mean around 10 accidents during the competition. Broken ribs, broken back, broken

legs, broken ankle. It's always the same. We had this discussion in your podcast about safety two months ago in Macedonia. It's always the same. How far the community is ready to go to hide this accident? How far the organizer will go into this? Okay. For the context of our listeners,

Aninder: that episode with Julian is a masterpiece of a one which will be coming soon. It is unreleased yet. But so to clarify, as humans, pilots can make mistakes, organizers can make mistakes. It's a part of the human nature. There's no finger pointing or personal blaming here. But let's say when it comes to showing compassion in times of need, dire, consistent needs, regardless of your history of slipping ups, I think it would be on the basis of humanity that you would put a condolence post out there. And if pilots have to take their own initiative in a rebellious manner, let's say what Maxine did, Which was, again, out of humanity, not to forget. Are we losing some sort of the compassion

Aninder: connection between the ones who are calling the shots and the ones who are actually playing the field? Because that is what I see. And if that is the case, then, of course, it's a very fair call for civil rights. to resign because let's say whatever has happened was history, but actively taking steps to suppress the voice for the cause of someone who's not there is, it just seems a bit unhuman to me, if I'm honest, Julian. I don't think we lost this humanity and this And this empathy, even inside your institution to discharge CVL constantly on this very

Guest: topic and on the topic of empathy, there was support for the family. There was support for the pilot. They got in touch. They went to the hospital. They did everything that could have been done in case of an accident. So, in fact, some member of this community said, they really feel and they really cared about getting the right thing done. The organization in Brazil did everything it could. The local one, the hospital was perfect. Everything was perfect. great from the words of the companion of brahm and the friends of ram so at this level i'm very confident that the individual are great humans great people and they do whatever that they can the trouble is not there the trouble is

institutional then suddenly there is a collective responsibility and no one feel entitled to take it yeah there is multiple bodies organizers cvl and fii and the responsibility the framework here is not clear who does what the principle they are just the workflow is not defined anywhere in case of a situation like this which is the dramatic by the way but this all comes first to the actual work of a commission international commission because mainly it's what we we say with this movement this institution is mainly focused into organizing events and too little focuses into providing the sport a real structure and a real path to grow on a more professional level meaning We see several

vice president or whoever involved directly in the bureau getting into the event and acting as a steward or as a jury, getting his hand into such an event. In which kind of federation, institution would you see something like that? A president or a vice president, a bureau board member coming and getting the things done by himself into an organizational point of view. This is crazy. This is not the point at all, not the role at all of... those kind of people we need them a lot we need them a lot to structure the sport to get the medical requirement to get the organizational format to A lot of things need to be done and they are consistently put aside just because they are busy organizing

events, which is nice, but just not enough. Got it. So professionalism is the need of the hour because day after day, lives are being put at stake

Aninder: and in the hope that this won't happen to me. But that is, again, subjective. And when that happens to you, Nobody can project that, but the point is that there needs to be a certain set of framework which at least ensures long-term safety standards which are good enough, if I decode this correctly. Yes, these, but also you can... Think about mid-director curriculum and certification, safety director

Guest: certification, life tracker formation and education. It's a full kind of tools that are actually lacking, but not because of the people are bad, just because the institution don't work the way it should be and don't work on the right topic, in my opinion. Fair enough. So let's say

Aninder: for listeners tuning in right now, If we have to clarify, what are the main demands that are being put on the table for the negotiation when asking for resignation? For the moment, we really need to rebuild this commission. What we see, and I will tell exactly why we are here, we see

Guest: super bad statistics into Cat1 event since ages. And last world championship in France, it was probably more than 20 accidents. no fatalities, but it was mostly luck, 20 accidents, and this time, it's again around 10 with one fatality. In the last hang gliding edition, one guy in coma, one guy dead, and 20 accidents again. So, come on, let's first just, nothing appointed, nothing badly intended, but just let's recognize this problem first. So, how do you recognize such a problem at a super high level of institution? you just resign and then we rebuild it's not a pure resignation it's not to forget your name or forget your face forget your commitment it's not the way but you resign and then we

put some new framework into the institution which are the three key principle we would like to enforce Before talking about safety, about format, about whatever we need to enforce and whatever we need to do on the safety matters, we need this commission to work again and to be able to properly produce some effect on the field. Makes sense. Would you briefly want to describe those three points that you mentioned in your

Aninder: letter? Because I do have screenshots of it, but I think we can just... Talk through it. It'll be better for the listeners. Yeah. So the first

Guest: one, which is in my opinion, super important is that the political should absolutely take care of the developing the sport, the structuring the sport. So it's what we just discussed before. It's minimum requirement for safety guidelines. it's again a mid-director safety director curriculum certification which are non- existent at the moment can you imagine yourself being mid-director of a 120 pilot in a world championship without actually having attended to no kind of course no kind of education just by experience just because you are designed by an organization you go there and you do the job yeah that's weird sounds weird It shouldn't be this way. We should have some

educational courses and some common reasoning about how we do a task, how we set a task, how we do stop a task, how many level three you stop a task. Plenty of stuff that are super important to enforce and to structure better the sport and then also different format sport class is still yet to come it's super important to have category for mass competing right now more and more pilots want and demand to compete but for sure ccc class is not for everybody so we should structure this more so that would be the first point to structure the sport Second point would more be about separating politics than technical. Actually, on the CEVL level, at this commission, international commission, you can

be either politician and at the same time, perfectly technician. So you are elected as president, vice president, and you can go to be jury or steward. Into some event, you can work with live tracker owning a live tracking company, no trouble. You can do whatever you want. In fact, basically, you can accumulate any source of power, any source of some are involved in both association paragliding World Cup runs event themselves as an organizer in some part of the world and still inside the board of the association. There is nothing against that so far. It's perfectly, there is no, no, it's not against the law. It's not, there is no, nothing bad. It's just that for the functioning of the association,

it suddenly doesn't work. It doesn't work. So the proposal is you get elected to the board. Suddenly you are politician. So you work to develop the sport and on the, on the structure side, you don't go into events. You don't go into organizing stuff yourself. And on the opposite, you want to organize stuff yourself. Well done. You are into working group. You are welcomed. You are into the organizer, the organizational stuff of the stewards or jury on the main event. It's perfectly fine. But you cannot be both. This show really sees because then there is conflict of interest everywhere. And this is what we witness now. So that would be a fair second point, I guess. I think I

Aninder: really like this assessment of yours because I've been calling a few people to get some more information about this. And I also was researching this episode. And one thing that I came across while discussing was that a number of times we see that there are a few gatekeepers of the society, most of which are like, let's say, in regular day, in normal life, it's big tech because they have all the resources and everything. And in our niche sport, it's usually the big manufacturers which drive the direction in which the sport grows and in which the R&D kind of where the money goes, basically where the market flows. So I was coming across a point that a lot of times it's the same guy

who is designing for a brand or working in a brand And the same guy who is also a part of the PMA, which is responsible for making certain decisions to keep the manufacturers in check. And then also the same person is in working group six, which is also responsible for deciding how the future generations will be able to enjoy the sport. So the point is a very valid one. I think one head, multiple roles sounds really good when it comes to efficiency and saving money or cutting the operational costs. but it comes at a hidden cost, which we are failing to identify as industry. And I think you guys have put it very well in that point number two there. I completely agree with that. Yeah, and there is another much

Guest: more simpler issue with the multiplying cap. In fact, you cannot be, there is only 24 hours a day. You cannot take charge of concretely and correctly of all those aspects multiplying aspects it's impossible so what you will do you will prioritize some and some you will let down and it's perfectly understandable but then some points don't work and it's actually what we experience there are things that are clearly too slow and clearly not evolving enough so that would be it Indeed. So about the point three, I would like to enforce and we would like with federation to enforce more democratic election into the venue, the bids. So where do the pilot go? What's next competition? So world championship,

European championship, Asian championship. Right now, the system is that we the delegate are voting this. So it's the by statute of the FII. It's the main election. representative of the plenary and of every NAC every NAC has one so every nation has one and it's up to those representatives to go and vote for the venue but it should really be more like pilot stuff to to choose the next place because the organization they are mostly known by the pilot and sometimes things get a bit political when you are invited somewhere in the plenary and You spent a week there or three or four days there, and the host is putting a bid. And so who will vote against his man suddenly? He's our host. He hosted us

during three, four days. And suddenly it's a bit hard to vote against something he would forward. And anyway, there are many situations where the delegates are actually a bit far from their pilots because it's, again, National Aero Club. Some of the delegates are not themselves pilots. It's not about a real sportive role. It's mostly a political and administrative role. So I really think we should find a solution to make online voting on small pool, maybe three pilot per nation, two pilot per nation. And at least we would have a more fine notion of what the pilots are actually wanting. On this occasion, a world championship should have been organized in Andradas, in Brazil.

And for whatever reason, it was not possible. And the Bureau decided to go for Castelo instead, or for Brazil still. But it shouldn't really be possible to let such a decision to a single or a couple of single men into the institution. It's acknowledged that they did it for good. They did it to not lose another world championship, which is perfectly nice. But still, We really need to discuss it on a more pilot level and more democratic way. I believe it's too much of importance. I think it's important to be in a position to have an honest and unhindered

Aninder: conversation, especially in today's time when people find it harder and harder to speak what they feel. But is this something what Marcella got reprimanded for in the posts? Marseille has sent a letter to the CIVL after they announced that they would switch the World Championship.

Guest: After they announced they would pass it from Andradas to Castelo. And we, as French, we signed this letter because we thought it was also a bad idea to go there at this moment of the year. But also because it was a little time to organize everything. such an event and the new organizer could have difficulty doing so and so we signed this letter and unfortunately the answer of the institution was pretty harsh and pretty heavy they actually with the knack with brazilian knack they actually threatened her to lose her sportive license and to not be able to compete into the world championship this reaction made his boyfriend Marcella's boyfriend, Rafa Barros, which is the strongest

pilot in Brazil, declined his selection for the World Championship. I don't know if you imagine the madness it is, in fact. For me, this fact only is already enough to underline a massive problem in our institution. Suppressing voice is never a good sign. And I think it's

Aninder: very brave of her boyfriend to come up and stand next to her. And I think we are more or less talking about the same underlying fact that a more athlete-oriented approach would, first of all, prevent such scenarios in the first case. And secondly, if they do arise, they should be handled in a much more professional manner. I think that is what your point number three is trying to address in here. Yeah, I really wish for

Guest: my institution to act as much more responsible and much more transparent as well. And so far, it's not about the people inside, it's just the framework. were that was provided is almost nothing and so it's a kind of freedom that gets just too much and yeah and the result is poor so

Aninder: now basically we have discussed what this movement is all about and more importantly what was the kind of cause that got it rolling and why a need for this moment was felt in the first place but now let's say julian for those listeners who are wondering how to do their own bit because this seems to be a noble cause which is eventually for the greater good. So how does the community get involved and how can people listening to this be a part of the tribe? I didn't feel hope that the bureau will ask the call and do resign so we can built a future with them inside the new team, inside

Guest: the new institution. And so my main goal and the main goal at French Federation is to keep the pressure on social media and to tell them what's happened is wrong and what happened shouldn't have been this way and we need a change. So The first thing is visibility. We need to make this movement visible much more. It's a small movement for the moment and we need much more. I started it on Instagram because I'm only there. Probably a ton of things to do on Facebook and elsewhere. So I do need relay. I do need more visibility and we need much more pressure into it. But that's only the first part because this is mediatical. So the point is for them, the main thing is they go to event. For sure, it would be

unsuitable to go to an event where people into the same event ask their resignation. It's not fun suddenly. So it's my main goal to let the people know and to convince more people that something went completely off the track. And second, it's true that they can just stick and wait until February or March. to the next plenary and this is perfectly normal by status it's always work and it's not elective so it's just a normal plenary the next one will be two years and then at the plenary for sure france will propose to vote against the president report and to vote against and to vote in favor of a proposal of resignation of the bureau if we are allowed to and then things will get more political so how

can you help first visibility i just said and second you find your delegate a national delegate and you explain and you show him this video and you explain the letter and you explain all that went wrong in the past and how it's important to rebuild this commission not with new people necessarily but with new principle and new ways of doing things that's the key point if Most of the time, a delegate will say, oh, resignation. No, it's too hot. Oh, no, we don't want that. We will cut the head of some people. I don't want that. It's nothing like this. Resignation doesn't mean, again, you quit forever. It's resignation. It's acknowledging and being responsible when things go wrong. wisely said Julian those

Aninder: are like very powerful words there and I just I really hope from bottom of my heart this becomes a reality because it seems like finally I wouldn't call this a watershed moment by far but let's say back in 2011 when we lost out on open class. It was made possible because more or less people have had enough by then of the constant carnage that was going on and decided to make a change in the masses. So regardless of whatever you may feel that I'm too small of a pilot, I just fly an E and A or a B wing, I've just 50 hours, like, well, this is a communication talk for like competition

pilots who fly triple c's it's not that guys let me be honest it's the initiative when somebody takes this is always for the greater good and for not censoring but in fact encouraging free speech which of course here translates into more professionalism more in-depth r d and safety norms details of which we discussed over here and the three main points of julia So there is much more to this moment rather than just building momentum to remove someone out of anger. This is not a rage bait, as Julian repeatedly mentions in his posts and even during the talk. This is for the possibility to have a safer tomorrow, if you allow me to put it like that, Julian. Thanks a lot. It's really summed up. And from all the

Guest: talk I got today, I think you are the one who understood it the most. So thanks for... reading carefully all the communication. Thanks for not just sticking to save or resign and just not read what it's all about. And yeah, I think, again, your work is amazing. So thank you very much for having me. No, you're welcome, Julian. Thanks for the appreciation. And I think it's mutual feelings here. So going forward, all of us will

Aninder: stay tuned and we'll continue doing our own bit to make this a more fun and a more safe place to be. Thanks, Anindya.