Henri at your Service

Meet Henri who works as a Valet in Cap d’Antibes.

Henri works with Julien, the founder of the Plage Garoupe Independent Valet service. He is one of a small team who spend their summers parking and generally looking after the cars of the beach restaurants clientelle. It’s a hot job and sometimes there are a hundred or more cars which need looking after at any one time but for a young man from the north of France I can think of much worse summer jobs than this one.

I caught up with him between him parking cars to have a quick chat with him about his job.

How long have you been a Valet here?

I have been working here for just over a month now. A friend of mine who worked here last summer told me about this job. I was looking for a summer job anyway so that I could earn some money in the holidays. When my friend told me about this opportunity I thought it would be a nice place to work and also a nice place to spend the summer.

How many of you work here?

There are 6 of us in the team and we are all freelance, we are not employed by the restaurants, . We are paid by the customers directly as we operate as an independent valet service. We don’t have a fixed fee for parking clients cars either, they pay us what they want.

What do you do normally?

The rest of the year I am a student in Lille, I am studying to be an estate agent.

I come from Lille in the north of France originally, in fact there are a couple of us here from Lille. Some of the team are students like me and for some this is a second job.

What do you like about being a Valet here?

I get to work with my friends, I have a great view and I get to park nice cars and meet nice people.

Is there anything you don’t like about the job?

Sometimes it’s difficult as often  we have to park the cars quite far away and it can be hard work running back and forth especially in the heat.

Do you ever worry about having to park some of the luxury cars often seen here?

No not really. Luckily we don’t have do drive them very far so I am not that nervous about getting into a very expensive car. I do get to park a lot of luxury cars though. It’s nice to drive those even if it is only for a few metres.

Do you spend time in Cap d’Antibes when you are not working?

Yes of course, I love this place. I love to go to the beach and to swim in the sea, we don’t have that back home.  I think it’s very very beautiful here.

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