Diving France?

[JMBL]

Glad to read you had fun and good dives in my homeland, although we still have that both useless and silly PADI vs FFESSM controversy. Which caves did you dive ?

 

[Freewillow]

Glad to see you had a lot of fun and no problem with the French system :cool2:

We just came back from french polynesia and one of my friends, a PADI Dive master + Advanced Nitrox IANTD was refused access to diving because he had a pacemaker. He had a letter from his cardiologist, saying he was able and from a pneumologist, saying he was able but not one from a "Sport doctor", which is the french "rule"..

Luckily enoug he ended up diving because one of the dive professionals, that personally knew the guy that granted him is IANTD, accepted to "break the rules" for him.

If he would not have been there and flexible, I am not sure that my friend could have dived.

FYI, my wife and I, we have the same credentials and we were not offered to dive independantly. We had to dive with a french dive leader. That's OK with us, we prefer to dive with a local DM, we enjoy our dives much more.

Everything went finally fine, but one has to know that some people can stick to the letter of the rules and be pretty stuborn . So a good piece of advice is to take contact with the dive operator before hand.

 

[ElZanclus]

Hi there ! For sure some french dive centers still have some problems to love Padi as much as they love the CMAS system. But obviously things are changing and that's cool, I've dived many times in France with Padi divers. There are really nice thing to see under the french coast of Mediterranean sea. If you are in the area of Saint Tropez, I recommend you dive in Port Cros, which is a natural protected site with lot of groupers, morays and corals. Many other dive sites have some nice plane and boat wrecks.

 

[lavieafond]

I live in France, and dived around Collioure and Montpellier this summer with my AOW Padi and Nitrox certifications. No medical certificate was asked for. The shops were super super nice, but then we only dived to 20m max so nothing to argue really. We have our dive gear with us in Paris, but use it mostly to dive elsewhere on the planet given all of this potential of being restricted by an unfriendly dive center refusing to see beyond the strict French system. We were quite annoyed in French Polynesia by the restrictions placed because of these equivalencies. In any case, my husband has 400 dives and me 250 in all sorts of conditions and we are confident underwater. In order to consider diving in the Francophone world again sometime, we would like to get PADI Rescue Diver. My real question here, if anyone sees this, is would that take us to an equivalent of FFESSM niveau 3 in the eyes of dive shops in France and FP? And someone mentioned a cross-over course to end up with an FFESSM Niveau 3 card in our hands as well. Thoughts? I have time and the skills would be great to have, but my husband insists that the French will recognize Rescue Diver as Niveau 3 and I'm not so sure.

 

[Freewillow]

The French are the French...........this means that each individual makes is own rules..............OK this is a kind of simplification but not totally untrue.

Some french schools will never take PADI equivalent but what I have observed is that most Rescue Diver will be considered as N2 and Divemasters N3.

I am french speaking but not rench. The French legislation DOES NOT apply in french speaking coutries - thanks God. I am sure some native frenchmen will confirm or disagree with my understanding of the "equivalencies" PADI/FFSSEM .

 

[lavieafond]

Thanks Freewillow. "Francophone" is the wrong word. Should say "France and related to France." I am French speaking but not French, living my 12th year in France, and basically avoid diving in France, and just totally gave up on a trip to French Polynesia (they follow the FFESSM system) because we refuse to travel around the world and then be refused dives because of this controversy. Too risky that we fall on a jerk. Even French PADI instructors told us the French system is like the military. So we'll take our diving dollars/euros elsewhere. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread to not scare away the non French divers from diving in France, and we oh-so-fortunately fell upon two SUPER nice dive shops this last summer on the Med., but the risk is high to have to fight for your dives and so if we could manage to get the equivalent of a Niveau 3 with adding a Rescue Diver cert like my husband thinks is possible then that'll erase any questions. Or we just get it because it is good to get given how often we dive, then continue avoiding diving in French places and enjoy the rest of the planet!! Sorry France.

 

[JMBL]

Well, I'm French, English speaking, and diving. Started as PADI OWD 26 years ago, but I'm also FFESSM certified, Niveau 3. I agree, diving in France without a CMAS related level can be a bother.

But I wouldn't rule out a doing a cross-over, there's nothing in the regulations, as far as I know to prevent it. You just have to find the right instructor. Many pros are both FFESSM and PADI certified. As there's no equivalence system between the 2 training systems, I fear a Rescue Diver + Deep Dive, and even with a TecRec Deco procedures, will not be recognised equivalent to a Niveau 3. I don't endorse it, but that's the situation.

And remember, there are many nice places to dive in France, so I think the time (and money) spent on the cross-over won't be wasted.

 

[lavieafond]

Thank you JMBL - yes the cross over will be the key if we want to have zero problems in France or French Polynesia. I'll do my PADI Rescue Diver, probably here in Paris because I have time right now, and then will also look into a cross-over option so there would be no question in the future. Thanks for your input on equivalencies.

 

[JMBL]

Pas de quoi !

 

[Freewillow]

One major discrepancy between the basic PADI system and the FFSSEM is that in the French system you are allowed and planning to go into deco mode. I dived in the Tuamotu. It is very difficult to go and see sharks at the entrance off reef passes that are @ 120/150 feet without going into deco. To dive beyond NDL requires to master quite a few skills since you are not allowed to raise to the surface anymore. This requires a special attitude, mastering buyancy, DSMB launching, dive computor knowledge .......It is not only a matter of French protectionism. Liability for french "divemasters" is pretty serious in this country.

To JMBL, thank you for confirming rescue diver = N2 and NOT N3.

To Lavieafond: maybe instead of rescue, make the passerelle AOW to N2 FFSSEM. Look at the table below.

Open Water -> Niveau 1

70 €
Rescue ou Advanced + Spécialité "Plongée profonde" -> Niveau 2, 5 plongées + théorie, hors prêt de matériel 270 €