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France: Flags on beaches

Last modified: 2004-07-10 by ivan sache
Keywords: beach | swimming condition | pollution | hazard | windsurfing | surfing | disk (red) |
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Beach watching system

French beaches usually have a pole to hoist a swimming condition flag. I do not know if there is some law or regulation prescribing such an hoisting. I guess there are, since several beaches have an official first-aid post, whose members are responsible of hoisting the relevant flag. Those posts are managed by members of the CRS (Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité), a corps of mobile police forces created in 1945 and mostly famous for repression of demonstrations and crowd movements. The first-aid branches of CRS (they also serve in mountain first-aid) have a better reputation than those seen in the streets.
The CRS members serving on the beaches have police power and are allowed to forbid access to the sea when necessary, and reinforce swimming and yachting rules. They pay special attention to the respect of the areas dedicated to swimming, windsurfing, yachting, and motorboating, respectively. Most of their activity is first-aid to people who have any kind of problems (immersion syncope