1957–1970: a helicopter group, a Catalina and the invention of the flying fire brigade

France built its state air services out of the same insight, twenty years apart: that some public emergencies are decided in the first hour, and that the only vehicle that can be there in the first hour flies. An interior ministry order of 19 June 1957 formally created the Groupement d’hélicoptères and attached it to what was then the national civil protection service. The water bombers came a few years later — Catalina flying boats from 1963, flown for eight seasons, long enough to prove that dropping water from the air worked. The Gendarmerie had got there first on the police side: a Bell 47G arrived at Satory in 1953, the helicopter section and the central helicopter workshop were created in 1956 and 1957, and the first French helicopter casualty evacuation was flown at Reims in July 1956.

1969–1996: the Canadair years, and what a yellow aeroplane came to mean in the south of France

What changed everything was the Canadair. France took the CL-215 amphibian in 1969 and kept eleven of them for twenty-seven years; the CL-415 replaced them from 1995, with France as launch customer. Between them they made the yellow aeroplane with the red engine nacelles part of the furniture of the Mediterranean summer. The call sign is Pélican, for the obvious reason: the aircraft lands on a lake or the sea and scoops 6,137 litres in twelve seconds, then drops it and goes back. In the same decades the service ran Douglas DC-6s from 1977 to 1990, four of them at once between 1982 and 1985, and three Fokker F27-600s from 1986 to 2003 for logistics. It has never been a large fleet. It has always been an extremely visible one.

1956–1994: the Gendarmerie takes to the air, from Satory to the Alps

The Gendarmerie’s air arm grew the other way, from small and everywhere. Alouette IIs entered service at Bron in 1957 and the workshop there invented the things that made mountain rescue possible: skids for snow, floats for water, a hoist. Alouette IIIs followed from 1963 and went to the Alps and the Pyrenees. Sections aériennes opened at Bapaume, Bron, Toulouse, Verdun and Berre, then in the overseas territories. The Gendarmerie also flew aeroplanes for a while — Nord 3400s from 1972 for road surveillance, then Cessna U206Fs from 1974 — and gave them up entirely in 1994. Today the Forces aériennes de la Gendarmerie nationale are 56 helicopters and about 500 gendarmes on thirty bases, doing judicial police work, surveillance, mountain rescue and the delivery of the GIGN, with an efficiency they are quietly proud of: nine full-time staff per aircraft, against an average of fifty-four across the seven French state air fleets.

1963–2026: the customs service and the long French coastline

The customs service is the smallest and the least visible. Its air branch dates from 1963, starting with helicopters at Saint-Mandrier, and its job is to watch the sea: France has the second-largest maritime domain in the world, and someone has to fly over it. Twelve Beechcraft F406s, built at Reims, did the work until they were retired between 2013 and 2016, replaced by Beechcraft King Air 350 and 350ER fitted with Ocean Master radar, an infrared turret, a side-looking pollution radar and an ultraviolet scanner. In December 2025 the fleet stood at thirteen aircraft — seven King Airs and six helicopters — based at Lann-Bihoué for the Atlantic and Channel, Hyères for the Mediterranean and Le Lamentin in Martinique for the Antilles and Guiana, with the land-facing surveillance brigade at Margny-lès-Compiègne.

2017–2020: Nîmes-Garons, and the end of the Tracker

The Sécurité civile’s modern shape was set by two events. The first was a move: the water bombers left Marignane, where they had always been, and went to Nîmes-Garons, the former naval air station released by the defence ministry at the end of 2011. Prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve inaugurated the new base on 10 March 2017, with 113 staff, about 80 pilots and 26 aircraft on a site that already held the helicopter group. It put every aeroplane, every maintenance shop and every crew in one place for the first time. The second was a loss. On 2 August 2019, at the Générac fire outside Nîmes, a Tracker flown by Franck Chesneau came down and the pilot was killed; the accident investigators found a mix of incomplete understanding of fire-generated air currents, unfamiliarity with the aircraft’s limits, an unknown actual weight and a crew determined to complete the mission. The eight surviving Trackers were retired on 14 February 2020 after forty years, formally for landing-gear corrosion.

2024–2026: four Canadairs ordered, a Senate warning, and an A400M with a water tank

In 2026 all three services are arguing for money at once. France ordered two DHC-515 amphibians in August 2024 and two more on 4 June 2026, about 200 million euros for four aircraft, with the first two due in April and November 2028 and the last two not before 2032–33; the production line had been shut for more than a decade and only restarted after a 22-aircraft European order. Until they arrive the twelve CL-415 have to hold the line, and in the meantime the Sécurité civile leases Air Tractor AT-802s each summer and, since July 2026, has been flying an Airbus A400M with a removable 20,000-litre water kit, first used operationally at Lacanau. On 30 August 2026 the Sénat published a blunt assessment of the Gendarmerie’s fleet: 56 helicopters on paper, about 34 available on an annual average, one per three départements, and ten air sections liable to be put on standby from 2028 if the Écureuils are not replaced.