French fire official says he was threatened with death over vaccine calls

A French fire service official said he received death threats and was harassed after calling for firefighters who refused the Covid vaccine to be suspended.

France's interior minister, G rald Darmanin, condemned the alleged social media threats against Eric Brocardi, who reported them to police.

Cmdr Brocardi, who is a spokesperson for France's national federation of firefighters FNSPF, came under attack after saying full-time and voluntary firefighters suspended for refusing the vaccine should not be allowed to return to the service.

France has a fire brigade divided into two groups: big cities and cities have professional brigades that are part of the military, while the rest of the country has volunteer brigades. There are fewer than 200 firefighters out of 41,800 and 5,000 out of 197,000 volunteers who have rejected the vaccine and are under suspension, according to officials.

Critics accused Brocardi of being a traitor and a Macron lackey Brocardi told Agence France-Presse that a number of threats had been reported to police, who were investigating. Darmanin said the threats were unacceptable whatever anyone's opinion. The question of whether the unvaccinated firefighters should be allowed to return to work came under scrutiny after France s fire services said they were understaffed and struggling to deal with widespread fires caused by the summer heatwave and drought.

In an interview at the end of July, Brocardi told Marianne magazine that staffing had been a serious problem well before the Covid crisis and would still be a problem even if all suspended staff were allowed back to work.

We need a lot of recruit to make people want to become volunteer firefighters. He said that we d have the same problems if these firefighters returned to work tomorrow. He repeated his opposition to their re-employment in the service on French television earlier this week, resulting in more abuse.

The FNSPF also made a police complaint after the threats, said the organisation's president, Gr gory Allione.

In France, official figures indicate that more than 92% of the adult population have been vaccinated against Covid, but vaccine hesitancy persists among those who have refused the jab.

In Toulouse, the authorities have demanded anti-vaccine posters be taken down from private hoardings around the southern city. The posters claiming the vaccine is dangerous were paid for by the R infoCovid collective and signed off by the organisation's independent scientific committee ReinfoCovid in 2020 to oppose the Covid-linked health restrictions imposed by the French government. It has been accused of spreading fake news and conspiracies but claims it is giving the most objective information possible on the health crisis.