• Since the fires in Gironde, Internet users have been asking for the lifting of the ban on exercising for firefighters not vaccinated against Covid-19.

  • According to them, it is unjustifiable not to let the 5,200 suspended firefighters return to their ranks.

  • But this is not the main problem at the moment, we are assured by the firefighters of Gironde.

“Reinstate suspended firefighters”.

Since the start of the fires in Gironde more than a week ago, a cry of anger has been heard on social networks.

In question: the prohibition for firefighters not vaccinated against Covid-19 to be able to exercise.

In all, they would be 5,000 volunteer firefighters and 200 professional firefighters… enough to weigh in on the workforce, which had 251,900 firefighters in December 2020 [including 41,800 professional firefighters and 197,100 volunteer firefighters].

“There is a lack of firefighters to take care of the large forest fires in progress.

And during this time, 5,000 of them are still prohibited from working, suspended because they have not been injected!

Reinstate the firefighters, and all the suspended ones, quickly ”, in particular challenged the president of the Patriots Florian Philippot on Twitter on July 16.

But where do these numbers come from, and are they justifiable?

Can we really say that the suspension of unvaccinated firefighters has had an impact on the management of fires in Gironde?

FAKE OFF

"It's a niche subject", immediately replies the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS) of Gironde, contacted by

20 Minutes

.

During the recent fires, the departmental service did not note a shortage in its workforce, and even less because of the suspension of unvaccinated firefighters.

"This is really marginal data", underlines the SDIS.

The figures of 5,000 volunteer firefighters and 200 professional firefighters seem significant, however.

Only here, at the SDIS of the Gironde, we assure not to be able to quantify the number of suspensions.

“We have no certainty about this statistic”, maintains our interlocutor.

These numbers do not come out of nowhere.

We have to go back to October 2021 to find the first traces of this data.

They then came from the CGT union of the SDIS, which was counting at this time on the suspension of 140 professional firefighters and 5,000 volunteer firefighters.

On the side of the CGT of the SDIS, it is assured that since then, these statistics have aged well.

Especially since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of the Interior no longer publishes a count updating the number of suspended agents.

“We only had the information that there was a downward trend”, informs us Sébastien Delavoux, member of the CGT.

Not just suspensions

Beyond the possible evolution of these figures in recent months, it must above all be analyzed with caution.

The number of absentees in the ranks of firefighters is indeed very difficult to quantify because of the diversity of their profiles.

“For professional firefighters, being suspended means having an administrative order.

But there may be unvaccinated people who are only on sick leave.

Finally, there are firefighters who are on standby, but who carry out another activity or on secondment who do not have to justify their activity, ”explains Sébastien Delavoux.

The number should therefore not be over-interpreted.

"It would be a shortcut," says the CGT.

Missing material

If our interlocutor admits that there is indeed a staffing problem in the ranks of firefighters, he assures that it is not only the consequence of this recent suspension.

“Our staffing needs are much greater than that.

We had already seen the problem during the fires of 2017, ”recalls the member of the CGT.

And according to him, the limits actually go much further than a single staffing problem.

The equipment, in particular, would be missing.

“Between 2006 and 2020, the number of specialized machines has greatly decreased,” notes Sébastien Delavoux.

Added to this is the growing number of fires due to global warming, as well as the increasingly limited availability of volunteer firefighters.

“The system is overheated”, regrets the CGT.

However, since the introduction of compulsory vaccination for firefighters and still today, the CGT says it is in favor of lifting this government ban.

But Sébastien Delavoux knows it: the reinstatement of firefighters suspended for several months will not act as a miracle recipe and other solutions will have to be found to reduce the multiple deficiencies.

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