Venues close as fire safety checks ramp up across France

Fire safety inspections are continuing across France following a deadly fire in a Swiss nightclub in January with increasing numbers of bars and restaurants being shut down as a result. 

In the days after the disaster in the Constellation bar/nightclub in Crans-Montana (Switzerland) on January 1 (in which 41 people were killed and more than 100 injured), the French Interior Ministry asked prefectures and mairies to step up checks of bars, clubs and other late-night venues. These are sites classed as établissements recevant du public, (ERP).

Already, dozens of venues have been found lacking in safety, with many facing emergency and/or temporary closures as a result, pending mandatory improvement to bring them up to standard.

For example, at the end of January, a safety commission carried out inspections at five venues in the city of Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany), with all but one of them judged to be unsafe and ordered to close immediately. 

Similarly, other recent high-profile cases include:

• Two venues in Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrénées, Occitanie) were closed after checks by police and departmental fire services at the end of February

• Four discotheques in Tours (Indre-et-Loire, Centre-Val de Loire) were closed after checks by police and fire services on March 4-5

• One nightclub in Laz (Finistère, Brittany) was closed after checks on 15 venues in the department on March 5 (including Laz), with the others comprising eight were in Brest, five in Quimper, and one in Châteaulin.

Inspectors found similar problems across all venues nationwide, including:

• Blocked fire exits

• Inadequate safety equipment

• Flammable materials and non-fire resistant wall coverings

• Dangerous electrical installations

• Non-declared underground areas

• Poor maintenance of emergency zones and procedures

• Non-functioning fire alarms

• A lack of crowd capacity controls.

This lack of compliance may “compromise people's safety in the event of an incident and justify the decision made by the safety commission”, the Hautes-Pyrénées national police said in a statement, reported by Actu.fr.

Inspection commissions are typically chaired by the prefecture authorities, and made up of the departmental fire and rescue service (pompiers/SDIS), and – depending on the type of venue – the police and representatives from the mairie.

Venues found to be non-compliant on minor issues must make changes immediately to continue operating, but in the event of major issues that will take longer to fix, a venue must close immediately by departmental decree. This can be issued by the mayor or prefect.

The venue must “remedy any non-compliance or anomalies identified…as soon as possible” before it can open again, stated the safety commission of Finistère.

“These unannounced inspections will continue throughout the department in the coming weeks,” it added, echoing the situation nationwide.