Brigade de sapeurs-pompiers de Paris
In French, firefighters are known as pompiers or sometimes as sapeurs-pompiers. The latter refers to the military-based Paris Fire Brigade, though it is sometimes informally used for firefighters elsewhere. "Pompier" (firefighter) comes from the word for "pump", referring to the manual pumps originally used for firefighting. "Sapeur" means "sapper" and refers to the first official firefighting unit created by Napoleon I which was part of the military engineering arm. Firefighters in the Marseille Marine Fire Battalion are known as marins-pompiers (sailor-firefighters). The usual name of a civilian fire services is a service départemental d'incendie et de secours (SDIS) (Departmental Fire and Rescue Service). Young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service "Service national universel (SNU)" in one of the fire brigades.