Police, emergency services, gendarmerie, Samu… Like every year, the departmental prefect made a tour of the mobilized services on New Year's Eve 2024. “There are 350 personnel mobilized in total with around 200 firefighters, around a hundred gendarmes, around thirty police officers, doctors, Samu…“, declared Marc Chappuis during his visit, Tuesday December 31 at the end of the day, to the Digne-les-Bains fire station.
Representatives of communities and various state services accompanied this visit, including the president of the Department Éliane Barreille, the mayor of Digne-les-Bains, Patricia Granet-Brunello, and deputies Sophie Vaginay-Ricourt and Christian Girard. This year, the support tour began with the Digne-les-Bains police station, followed by the departmental fire and rescue operational center (Codis), the gendarmerie and its aerial section based in Aiglun, before concluding at Digne hospital. The opportunity to take stock of the state of these services before a rainy night where accidents tend to multiply.
An evening to watch
The holiday period puts emergency workers to the test, with an upsurge in road accidents around New Year's Day. In three quarters of cases, fatal accidents on January 1 are linked to excessive alcohol consumption. The prefectural visit therefore aimed to support the lower Alpine staff on deck last night to ensure that the party took place in the best conditions.
“We are not expecting any particular events during the night but we are mobilized to deal with any eventuality,” added Marc Chappuis, who issued a prefectural decree to prohibit the firing of fireworks by individuals, another significant source of accidents.
Surrounded by the fire brigade team, he stressed that New Year's Eve was generally calmer in the department in terms of accidents than elsewhere in France: “We are rather on a New Year's Eve which does not give rise to any particular excesses. We still place a big emphasis on road safety monitoring.“
Before rejoicing in “rather encouraging statistics” in terms of road safety over the past year.
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