The native of Montbazens who was an ardent and always passionate about the Bruniquel cave in Tarn-et-Garonne, died this Tuesday, November 19 at the age of 74.
The day before his death, he was still exploring a cavity in the neighboring town of Cazals (Tarn-et-Garonne): this Tuesday, November 19, Michel Soulier, speleologist by passion and president of the Mangrove caving club in Bruniquel, died at age 74 following a heart attack.
Michel Soulier was born in April 1950 in Montbazens in Aveyron, a high school student in Rodez then in Montauban, then a student in Paris then in Toulouse, details La Dépêche du Midi. It was in Aveyron that he discovered caving, in 1962 with Roland Pélissier of the Causse Comtal Caving Club, a passion that would follow him all his life, as it was enough for him only to follow the course and gorges of the river Aveyron to settle in Caussade in Tarn-et-Garonne, become a teacher there and discover among the first the Bruniquel cave, a cave that he will never stop exploring, like dozens of others in Quercy or the Pyrenees, in France and elsewhere in the world.
To be seen in action in a documentary
Friend of François Rouzaud, chief heritage curator at Drac Midi-Pyrénées and who died in April 1999 in the Foissac cave in Aveyron, Michel Soulier became one of the most eminent French speleologists and prehistorians. He leaves behind a wife and three children, one of whom also took up the profession of speleologist.
A specialist in the Bruniquel cave, sometimes nicknamed “Soulier cave”, the Aveyronnais had participated in the documentary produced by Arte Productions “Neanderthal, the mystery of the Bruniquel cave”, eight times awarded at international festivals and broadcast several times on the Franco-German channel.
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