Fire services in France

Sapeur means "sapper" and refers to the first official firefighting unit created by Napoleon I which was part of the military engineering arm.

[6] Here, the cross-trained firefighters will provide on scene care and transport for injuries or illness, but are usually backed up by a SMUR unit for more serious or complex cases.

Firefighters are trained to provide basic life support (BLS) level care.

[7] Volunteer-staffed ambulances may be called a VPS (véhicules de premiers secours – first aid vehicle).

As of December 2015, there were 246,900 firefighters in France:[1] In addition, they employed 11,910 medical responders, and 10,900 administrative and support personnel.

Civilian professional fire fighters are local government civil servants of class A, B, and C. Civil servants class A and B, and their volunteer counterparts, are trained at the National Fire College, École nationale supérieure des officiers de sapeurs-pompiers.

[15] Direct entry lieutenants 1st class are undergoing a 32 weeks course at the French Fire College (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Officiers de Sapeurs-Pompiers).

[22] Colonels are recruited through civil service exams open to fire fighters class A qualified as area managers.

[12][24] In 2015, the French fire services responded to 4,453,300 incidents, most of which were medical:[1] Paris and Marseille comprise 10% of the national total.