Teaching PSE1 and PSE2 in France: What It Takes to Train Team First-Aiders

The PSE1 and PSE2 — « premiers secours en équipe », team first aid levels 1 and 2 — form the backbone of civil protection’s operational track in France: they are the qualifications of the responders who staff first-aid posts, event medical cover and field operations. Teaching these units is considerably more demanding than delivering PSC, and the corresponding authorisation must be earned. Here is what you need to assemble in 2026.

PSE1, PSE2: operational training, not introductions

Decree no. 2024-242 of 20 March 2024 organised teaching units into four tracks; the PSE units belong to the operational track, dedicated to the non-medicalised care of casualties. Concretely:

• the PSE1 trains the team first-aider: casualty assessment, first-aid actions with equipment, oxygen therapy, working in pairs under procedures;
• the PSE2 goes deeper: immobilisations, lifting and stretcher work, multiple-casualty situations, integration into a structured rescue chain.

This content requires heavy scenario work, specialised equipment and instructors who themselves come from the field. That is why the audience for these courses remains civil-protection actors — approved civil-protection associations, fire services, public services — and not the general public. The health stakes, though, are the same as everywhere in the chain of survival: the meta-analysis by Sasson and co-authors published in 2010 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes (see the study) reminds us that every early, competent link in casualty care weighs directly on survival.

The authorisation: unit by unit, track by track

Golden rule of the scheme: the authorisation is granted teaching unit by teaching unit. Being authorised for the PSC gives no rights over the PSE1-PSE2, and vice versa. Your application — or extension request — must therefore explicitly cover each operational unit you target.

For each one, the order of 17 June 2024 expects:

1. Instructors qualified for the operational track. The pedagogical track separates the applied teaching course for team first aid (FPSE) from its citizen-side counterpart (FPSC). Your PSE instructors must hold the corresponding certificates and be up to date with continuing training — the pathway is detailed in our article on the pedagogical track.
2. Internal training and certification frameworks specific to the PSE1 and PSE2, consistent with the national frameworks and registered with the DGSCGC: durations, techniques, assessment arrangements, traceability.
3. Operational equipment. Well beyond PSC manikins: immobilisation and lifting equipment, training oxygen-therapy kit, simulation material for multi-casualty scenarios. The equipment attestation is part of the file.
4. A structured teaching team: at least two instructors, a pedagogical lead, an aptitude list communicated to the prefect of every département where you operate.

Who issues the authorisation? The minister (DGSCGC) for associations and multi-departmental structures, the prefect for departmental public services — our article on national versus departmental authorisation details the allocation and how teaching permissions work within networks.

Keeping competencies alive: responders’ continuing training

A strong particularity of the operational track: continuing training applies not only to instructors but to certificate holders too. The post-reform framework makes employment in first-aid roles conditional on maintained competencies, under arrangements set by ministerial order. For a structure, this means:

• keeping a named register of each responder’s and instructor’s initial and continuing-training dates;
• scheduling maintenance sessions before deadlines, not after;
• archiving session reports and competency certificates impeccably.

This documentary discipline has a hidden virtue: if your courses are also financed by public or pooled funds and Qualiopi comes into play, the traceability civil protection demands feeds your evidence directly — see our guide to the 32 indicators.

PSE and workplace first aid: don’t mix up the counters

One final bearing: the PSE units have nothing to do with the SST (« sauveteur secouriste du travail », workplace first-aider), which belongs to the Assurance maladie – Risques professionnels / INRS network and targets employees in companies. The audiences, frameworks, authorities and authorisation procedures are separate. If your project targets companies, open the SST authorisation page; if it targets rescue operations, stay on civil protection’s operational track.

Take action

FPSE instructors, PSE1-PSE2 internal frameworks, operational equipment, a unit-by-unit application: the bar is higher than for the PSC, but the path is marked out. Our first-aid approval page gathers the scheme, the steps and our complete guide to build your application with no blind spots.