At the foot of the Eiffel Tower and under the eye of tourists, professional firefighter unions set up a camp on Sunday to show their “anger”, planning to stroll on Monday then parade on Tuesday in Paris, the culmination of three weeks of mobilization to obtain additional resources. Since September 8, the date of the start of the strike notice filed by the nine unions representing some 44,000 professional firefighters (excluding the military), they have multiplied banners, magnets and inscriptions on trucks to signify their “anger”.
The eight inter-union unions launched their “anger reinforcement column” on Sunday morning on the Champ-de-Mars in Paris, explains David Saquet, of Unsa Sapeurs-Pompiers, to meet the population and elected officials “and tell them what is on our hearts, show them our peaceful anger” and “our determination to make ourselves heard by the government”. A stroll in the capital is planned for Monday before participation on Tuesday in the public service demonstration at the call of a large inter-union movement mobilized for an increase in remuneration and budgetary resources.
Hiring and resources
The professional firefighters have filed a strike notice which runs until October 20 but “there is no question of lifting the notice until we have obtained satisfaction”, assures Rémy Chabbouh, of SUD Sdis. On his firefighter outfit, he hung a “On strike” badge, like other of his colleagues present in Paris. Professional firefighters – territorial agents -, like the approximately 200,000 volunteer firefighters, are demanding hiring, better protection of their health and a refocusing of their missions.
Firefighters say they are exhausted after an intense fire season, confronted with the first pyrocumulonimbus – or “fire storm” – observed in France. Since January, some 98,000 hectares have burned, a record for fifty years, and according to the National Federation of Firefighters, all interventions combined, eight firefighters have died.
So before the media spotlight goes out and especially before the examination of the financing project scheduled for October 20 – the date until which the strike notices run – the firefighters are trying to make themselves heard on several issues. The first concerns the so-called civil security modernization bill, a first summary of which was presented on September 8. This text not only “satisfies no one” but is even “unanimously against it” and is “made to be self-scuttled”, asserts Frédéric Monchy, of the SNSPP-PATS union, who is organizing a day of solidarity on Tuesday with the inhabitants of Porge in Gironde, where 183 houses burned during the July megafire.
Another file, entangled in the first, concerns financial measures, which should appear in the finance bill. But for the moment, “we know nothing” about new financing avenues for the Sdis, comments Frédéric Monchy, except the overall budgetary effort of 54 billion euros in savings to be made in 2027. When asked, the Civil Security management says that since September 8, 2,682 professional firefighters on strike have been counted “per day, on average” (i.e. 9.3% of the overall workforce).
