🇫🇷France

Before Entering the Water

• Give the dive director your certification and recent experience. Ask about the medical certificate required for the booked activity: FFESSM licensing and other contexts have their own rules, and introductory exceptions should not be generalized.
• Confirm a site-specific emergency plan, communications, suitable first-aid oxygen, weather limits and pickup procedures with the operator.
• Use thermal protection appropriate to depth and duration. Atlantic, lake, deep-wreck and cave trips are not interchangeable with a shallow Mediterranean holiday dive.
• For freediving, use trained safety supervision, never hyperventilate and never practice alone. Arrange dedicated coaching rather than relying on another swimmer to improvise a rescue.

Flights and Altitude

DAN recommends at least 12 hours after a single no-decompression dive and at least 18 hours after repetitive or multiday no-decompression diving before flying. Decompression diving requires substantially longer than 18 hours and individual guidance. These are minimum guidance intervals, not guarantees. A full non-diving day is a useful itinerary buffer for ordinary recreational trips, while longer computer, operator or medical guidance takes precedence. Apply altitude caution to mountain drives as well as flights.

For suspected decompression illness or another serious incident, stop diving and contact emergency services immediately. A trained responder can provide oxygen while rescue is organized. Do not fly, travel to altitude or attempt in-water recompression. Preserve dive-computer profiles and follow medical instructions.

Verified mainland and Corsican referral examples include the hyperbaric services at Marseille's Hopitaux Sud, Nice's Pasteur 2, Ajaccio hospital and Lyon's Edouard Herriot hospital. These are not promises of immediate local access from every coast, lake or island. The emergency coordination service should choose the receiving facility. For Martinique, Guadeloupe, Reunion and remote island outings, ask the operator and insurer to confirm the current evacuation pathway before diving; this guide does not assert unverified chamber availability.

Know Which Protected-area System You Are Entering

France uses national parks, marine natural parks and nature reserves with different zoning. Port-Cros, the Calanques, Iroise, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Reunion do not share a single blanket activity permission.

The critical checks are specific: Port-Cros marine-core scuba requires authorization; Cerbere-Banyuls prohibits freediving and controls scuba; the Carry-le-Rouet and Cap Couronne reserves prohibit scuba; Scandola prohibits scuba. Check the official map and current rules before assuming a nearby legal dive occurs inside a reserve. Southern Corsica also requires attention to Bouches de Bonifacio zoning and mooring rules.

Leave Habitats and Wildlife Undisturbed

Maintain buoyancy above seagrass, coralligenous growth and coral. Never feed wildlife, stand on reefs or collect shells, organisms or archaeological objects. Use permitted moorings and obey anchoring restrictions. Give marine mammals and nesting birds space; do not pursue encounters or enter the water solely because animals are present. Treat any wreck object or suspected ordnance as something to leave untouched and report through the operator or authorities.