France

In France, pre-hospital care is performed either by first responders from the fire department (sapeurs-pompiers, in most emergency situations) or from a private ambulance company (relative emergency at home), or by a medical team that includes a physician, a nurse and an ambulance technician (called "SMUR"). The intermediate scale, the firefighter nurse (infirmier sapeur-pompier, ISP), is only a recent evolution and is performed by nurses who have been specially trained acting with emergency protocols; these nurses are the French equivalent of paramedics. The arrival of first responders is thus the most common result of an emergency call. In addition, in France there exists a network of first responder associations, as French Red Cross (Croix-rouge française), French Civil Protection (Protection civile), FFSS (Fédération Française de Sauvetage et de Secourisme) or others. These CFR volunteers are allowed to supervise massive outside meetings, student gatherings, et cetera. These volunteers have followed the same special rescuer training as firefighters (PSE 1 & PSE 2, in all 70 hours of training), trainees always know what they are going into, they would be given basic medical training then transferred to the Fire Department, they shall always show humanistic interaction, and shall assist and help people with their concerns.(( firefighter))s ((PSE1-PSE2))