Thèse UTM 2008 Claude VIDAL
4
SUMMARY
The Atlantic-Pyrenean volunteer firemen represent 75% of the operational active
intervention force. The French national fire brigade of public sector essentially lies on
the everyday commitment of women and men involved in civil security missions on the
French national territory. Being engaged as a volunteer fireman demands to be able to
both lead a double life and assume a double identity. It demands to serve the general
interest being linked, in the same time and in parallel, to an employer in the public or
private sector. Our research-work mainly aims to reveal that a total or subdivided skills
transfer, can be implemented, combining the two active spheres, the volunteering and
professional ones. Before developing the main ideas, our research paper starts by
making an overview on the definition of "Volunteering" compared to "Voluntary work",
to carry on by focusing on the commitment features: what are the common values
connecting the two spheres? How can they meet and be combined? How can they
exist? What are the hidden characteristics of such self sacrifice? In order to light our
research, we have depicted the volunteers firemen history to catch how the voluntary
engagement appeared, has been built and is still so strongly rooted in the French civil
security. To overhaul our hypothesis, we have drawn our own skill model based on
common points identified in the two professional spheres, taking into consideration the
employers and the volunteers perceiving, demands and expectations. To complete our
analysis and to adhere to our professional experience and needs, we have studied
how stronger social relations and partnerships between, particularly, public sector and
companies, can be developed through continuing training, corporate sponsorship and
voluntary engagement integration in the employers company social responsibility. All
this has converged to show that the voluntary engagement system remains to be
brittle: major limits have been detected because of accrued operational solicitations for
fewer volunteers.