ThoseA life along the water (6/6)
Michel Perrissol, last of a large line of fishermen on Lake Geneva
The Perrissol family saved on Lake Geneva for several generations. Michel, his last representative, started off the coast of Mies before establishing himself at the end of the lake.
The fisherman Michel Perrissol in front of his lair at the Maison de la Fêche, in Eaux-Vives, on June 17, 2025.
Laurent Guiraud
- Last episode of our summer series on French -speaking fishermen.
- Based in Eaux-Vives, Michel Perrissol is the last representative of a large family of fishermen.
- Even if he has seen others, the sixty -something person entrusts his concern in the face of the current fish shortage.
On this sunny morning in June, an appointment had been given at 11 a.m. at the Maison de la Fêche, in the Vives. But at 8:59 am, message from Michel Perrissol: “Hello, I have already finished the day. If you can come earlier? No fish. “
Since the start of the year, The days follow each other and look terribly alike. They conclude on a grip well below expectations. When we arrived, Michel Perrissol takes stock of the first two days of the current week: barely 1 kg of poles. “At 58 francs, the kilo, I will not go far,” blows the 68 -year -old man, the last representative of a large family of fishermen.
A family story
It has been a long time since the name Perrissol resonates on the Lake Geneva. Around him, Michel counts six loved ones to have exercised this same profession made of exhausting days started at dawn: his father, two uncles, an aunt and a cousin. “But today, there is only me left,” he confides, glasses raised on a pepper and salt mop, the fleece zipped to the top under a work apron.
Let him not ask him for his first memory on the lake, how do you want him to remember “something like that”? “I was put on a boat, I didn’t even know how to walk,” he laughs. “I was pretty good at school, first in math, and my teachers saw me in the uni. But my father said no, you come with me. Becoming a fisherman was obvious. My whole family was in there. ” Long studies are her three children who will undertake them. So goes life.
With his father, Michel begins off Mies, in the canton of Vaud. “At the time, there were no cantonal territorial waters and we could go where we wanted,” he said. We then usually see his boat – named Jéjé Squaleaccording to the name of his son Jérôme – off Founex, Coppet or Tannay. So close to the Geneva border. That he will eventually cross.
Michel Perrissol and his son Jérôme on the lake off Mies, in the canton of Vaud, in August 2005.
Laurent Guiraud
Twenty years ago, Michel Perrissol settled at the end of the lake. “One of my uncles was sick and he asked me to replace it,” he explains. He first took up his districts in one of the sheds facing the jet of water, before moving a few years ago at the Maison de la Fêche, following the development of the beach of Eaux-Vives.
Lake fish tartare
For his sockets, Michel Perrissol has always had historic customers, a handful of restaurants, such as the red beef in the Pâquis or Le National, in Versoix, a commune where he has long lived. Popular address if this is, the National has regularly offered a tartare of lake fish, exquisite and refined, freshly from its nets in its menu.
The pike or the Féra, the fisherman, cook in his spare time, likes to smoke them cold, after ten days in the freezer. He can then serve them “in tartare or carpaccio”. “I add a drizzle of olive oil, a slight seasoning according to tastes, but no sauce. The product is so good, ”he insists, a sudden gourmet eye.
Multiple little jobs
In addition to five decades to work on the lake, Michel Perrissol will have experienced good years, but necessarily also galleys. As between 1977 and 1983, when there was “no more fish”, no doubt because of overfishing. “We all worked outside,” he says.
It is the hidden side of the profession. It often happens that fishermen are forced to multiply the odd jobs in parallel. Michel Perrissol counts six years as a painter, three to trime on the tarmac of the airport, or another year as a cabinetmaker.
In Michel Perrissol’s room at the Maison de la Fêche, in the Water Vives, in Geneva.
Laurent Guiraud
However, a start to the year like this, he had never experienced before. “Ideally, it would be necessary to succeed in raising between 60 and 80 kg of whole perch per day to turn, but there, it is barely if we arrive at 20 kg”, reports Michel Perrissol, who sees his “fifty-two years of savings” go for smoke.
The King of Lake Geneva Fish is not the only one to be rare. The Féra? Also disappeared. The pike and the umbly knights are hardly seen more.
On the other hand, Siles“We thought there were hundreds, but they are thousands,” reports Michel Perrissol, showing a specimen caught this morning. Mensurations: 2.7 m for 60 kilograms. “We are ready to fish everything we find to get out of it,” says François Liani, who occupies the neighboring fisheries at the Maison des Eaux-Vives. But it is still necessary that the customer is requesting, which is not won.
Political fight
Sower would love poles and this would be one of the explanations of their mysterious evaporation. But not the only one. The fishermen also evoke the presence of cormorants, now present all year round due to mild temperatures, the proliferation of the Quagga mussels, which filter water from the food sought by fish, or the vagaries of ever more unpredictable weather.
But above all, in general, the lake is too hot and it is no longer able to brew its waters. “We are very annoyed with global warming,” sums up Michel Perrissol.
What to do? The fishermen wrote to the authorities to request help. A letter was sent to the territory department in the hope of an exemption from rent. But Antonio Hodgers’ services only evoke “an arrangement of payments”.
The Delphine Bachmann’s economy department has also been requested. Aid in favor of the dozen Geneva professionals is envisaged. “If the profession is not momentarily helped, we will not get out,” dreads Michel Perrissol. Who has seen others, however.
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