While the Minister of Health, François Braun, declared At the beginning of july that the reintegration of unvaccinated caregivers was not “not up to date”, part of the French political class is now calling on the government to question the situation of unvaccinated firefighters. Remember that since September 15, 2021, firefighters, like caregivers, are subject to the vaccination obligation: they cannot continue to exercise their profession without being up to date with their vaccination against Covid-19.
But with the fires which affected several French departments, deputies, in particular within the Republicans (LR) asked for the “reintegration” unvaccinated firefighters. “Sincerely, today, prohibiting a firefighter from exercising, it no longer makes any sense”estimated Olivier Marleix, president of the LR group in the National Assembly, on Franceinfo on Wednesday July 20.
The day before, it was his neighbor at the Palais-Bourbon, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who denounced the “suspension of 5,000 unvaccinated firefighters”. A number what the member for Essonne is not the only one to quote. The president of the Patriots, former number 2 of the National Rally, Florian Philippot, also relayed it on social networksdenouncing the “5,000 firefighters” prevented from working.
Where does this number come from?
Joined by The world, Florian Philippot specifies that he found this count in an article by Franceinfo, published on July 14. On the side of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, his team argues that it comes from information from the Departmental Fire and Rescue Services (SDIS) which were communicated to him.
This figure of 5,000 suspended firefighters dates from October 2021 and was indeed communicated by the SDIS. Specifically, it comes from feedback from the General Directorate of Civil Security and Crisis Management (DGSCGC) attached to the Ministry of the Interior.
Few firefighters are unvaccinated:
– 140 professional firefighters out of 42,000 were suspended (0.3%);
– 5,140 volunteer firefighters out of 240,000 (2.1%)
“It’s infinitesimal”, reacted on RMC, Grégory Allione, president of the National Federation of Firefighters. And to confirm in turn: “We are at less than 2% of the workforce on volunteer firefighters, and much less on the workforce of professional firefighters. »
In the absence of a vaccination obligation, could we count on 5,000 additional firefighters to fight summer fires, as the opponents of this health measure suggest? This is a statement to be qualified. “A volunteer firefighter can be someone available 364 days or only one day in the year, but both are counted under this designation of volunteer firefighter”, nuance Sébastien Delavoux, union representative CGT-SDIS. Furthermore, he adds, “there may be people who have been suspended and who were not available to intervene. » The spokesperson also adds that in this count, there are likely cases of unavailable volunteer firefighters “vaccinated but who have simply never communicated their vaccination status to the SDIS [services départementaux d’incendie et de secours]which caused their automatic suspension”.
Finally, according to the CGT-SDIS, the number of suspended volunteer firefighters did not, overall, represent additional difficulties in the teams, as the lack of staff among firefighters was glaring before the Covid-19 epidemic. . “From March 2019 until January 2020, we led an angry movement to denounce the lack of personnel and say that we did not have the means to do our job, and that was long before the vaccination obligation and current forest fires,” emphasizes Mr. Delavoux.