France Inter columnist Nicole Ferroni, widely known for her humorous pieces, dedicated her column this Wednesday to the fire service.
"Something I’ve never done in ten years of writing this column – I’m going to talk to you about firefighters!", "So I don’t know if it’s those calendars featuring this amazing profession, or all those firefighters deployed in Essonne, the Rhône, the Landes, Calvados, the Loiret and the Aube... But I felt like popping down to the fire station in Aix-en-Provence and asking, ‘What’s happened to the hoses? The nozzles and the ladder...’”", she says in a sing-song tone. "And to ask, what have we done to the fire brigade to make them lose their passion like this?".
Nicole Ferroni continues her column by sharing a firefighter’s account, "Instead of putting out forest fires, we’re the social fire-extinguisher, the problem-sink. We’re the trapped cat, we’re the drunk bloke, and we’re even the drunk cat! We’re stepping in for the police at road accidents, for the ambulance service in social emergencies, and for paramedics when it comes to transporting patients, because, like us, they’re stretched to the limit. As a result, the number of call-outs we handle is rising, whilst staffing levels are stagnating – or worse, in the Landes region, they’re actually falling. This can’t go on any longer.".
Is the government using volunteers to run a legal black market?
"Wait! I thought that with professionals and volunteers, you had twice the expertise. Twice as many firefighters to do the job properly." she exclaims, before mimicking a firefighter’s reply. "But, Ferroni, you’ve completely missed the point. And he explains it to me. In the fire service, there are indeed two types of firefighters: professional and volunteer. That doesn’t stop the professionals from being highly committed or the volunteers from being highly professional. But it does mean that neither group receives the same kind of pay.".
"Professional firefighters, because this is their profession, receive a salary, on which their employers – that is, the local authorities – pay employers’ social security contributions, and on which the firefighters themselves pay employees’ social security contributions and tax. Whereas volunteer firefighters, because they carry out voluntary work alongside their day jobs – whether as teachers or bakers – receive an allowance, that is to say, a sum on which neither employer’s nor employee’s contributions are paid, but, more importantly, on which they do not pay tax,” she explains.
He went on to say, “Now you might say to me, ‘But Ferroni, that’s not an allowance, it’s under-the-table work, isn’t it? No social security contributions, no tax – sorry, but that’s what you call under-the-table work.’ Yes! That’s exactly it – the state is paying under the table, but legally, through the volunteer firefighters and their allowances, which vary depending on their career.”