While a massive blackout seriously disrupted access to the SAMU, firefighters and the police in many regions, Wednesday evening, June 2, and an investigation was opened in Vannes after the death of a man with emergencies, the president of the National Federation of Firefighters of France (FNSPF), Grégory Allione, explains how the services had to “Put in place means of circumvention”.
Have you ever experienced a blockage of such magnitude?
No. We sometimes know of technical incidents or malfunctions, but this is the first time that we have had such a blackout on emergency numbers.
What consequences did this failure have on the work of the firefighters?
Concretely, the routing of the calls for help could not be made under normal conditions, and within response times which, sometimes, would have made it possible to save lives – the investigations will make it possible to determine to what extent. If I had to imagine, Orange, formerly France Telecom, it is the “institutional” operator who must ensure that the pipeline allows the water distributed by all operators, including Bouygues or SFR, to pass. For several hours, that was not the case.
Can we estimate what proportion of calls to emergency services were unsuccessful?
Orange must deliver statistical data to the government. All we know is that we had to redeploy ourselves, and put in place means of bypassing.
How? ‘Or’ What ?
We have sometimes grouped together services – SAMU, police, gendarmes, firefighters – in the same room to make them work together since, between us too, we had difficulty reaching each other. Then, we set up bypass numbers, ten-digit numbers distributed by the prefectures and the Ministry of the Interior on social networks or by press releases. In each department, to reach the firefighters, instead of 18 or 112, there were sometimes one, three, four or five numbers.
Was there a moment of panic in the evening when the malfunctions appeared?
No. All emergency services are prepared to deal with this type of situation. We worked together on how to respond, then we proposed solutions to the prefectural authority, which arbitrated very quickly so that we had operating models of bypassing, using ten-digit numbers, but also social networks which, today, when an emergency situation arises, must be used.
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