It would take all the pages of the newspaper to tell the life of the one who was an assiduous reader of The New Republic and who left this world on January 28th.
Pierre Bénéteau was born in Lusignan (Vienne) in 1938 to a “galochier” father, badly injured in the war of 14-18, and a mother who was a domestic worker. Suffice to say that the income of the household was not enough to finance the studies of the one who, quickly, after the path of the schoolchildren, took the no less venerable course of the Normal School before becoming himself a teacher at Lusignan then at Saint- Saving. He then accepted a PEGC post in Gençay where his destiny simultaneously followed that of the CEG of the time.
Infinitely grateful to the State for having allowed him his social ascent, Pierre Bénéteau had set himself up as a real guideline of commitment to his fellow men. Thus he has worked hard for the development of summer camps and the promotion of sport outside the school setting. Associative activism was his DNA and, as such, he had contributed, among other things, to the revival of the Union musicale de Saint-Maurice-la-Clouère, the creation of a youth center in Gençay and that of the association archery.
Not to mention his strong presence in the twinning committee and his long investment with the socialist party. Himself a veteran of North Africa, he wore loud and clear the colors of French remembrance. A man of compromise, his religious beliefs told him to show generosity, to love and respect others and to categorically refuse injustice.
Many who knew him attended his funeral. “I choose what I do with my life! » he declared very recently to his children. In Gençay, he will leave the image of a man who seemed to have spent a large part of his existence in tracksuits.
