What the FFME is

Created in 1942, the FFM (French Mountaineering Federation) was for years a purely administrative organism, a gateway between its member associations and the authorities, granting federal diplomas and providing insurance. During that period, its most active organism was the Himalayan Committee, while the rest of the sporting activity was only managed by the associations.

At the beginning of the eighties, the influence of many personalities and associations lead the FFM to take an increasingly larger part in the management of mountain and especially climbing activities. In 1982, the FFME created a rock climbing commission (Commission Escalade) which appeared to be very active. However, many suspected it to be involved only in top level climbing, and many ``mountaineers'' regretted that the climbing activity was becoming a new practice, independent from alpinism. These disagreements, added to some personal conflicts, lead a large part of the Commission Escalade to retire from the FFM and create a new sporting federation, the Fédération Française d'Escalade (FFE), in 1985. The ministry authorities, however, expressed their wish of having a unique partner federation. In parallel, many climbing personalities organized meetings and discussions to lead the various parties to a better understanding. This resulted in damping the major disagreements, so that the FFE and the FFM merged in 1987, giving place to the FFME (Fédération Française de la Montagne et de l'Escalade).

It should be recalled that the FFME is a federation, i.e. its members are associations, not physical persons (although exceptions to this are still possible) so that the average climber has only to deal with his club which provides both its own services as well as those of the FFME.

As any sporting federation, the FFME has multiple rôles:

• It is the normal transit gateway for subventions from the ministry of Sports and Youth to the associations.
• By delegation from the authorities, it is entitled to state how a sporting activity should be practiced, and to establish the rules of the competitions.
• It grants federal (i.e. non-profit, non-professional) diplomas.
• It is the official representative of the mountaineers and climbers to the authorities.

In addition to these administrative and political missions, the FFME provides the mountaineering and climbing world with the following facilities:

• instruction periods for non-profit association staff
• certification of mountain and climbing gear (joint with UIAA)
• official, diplomatic and sometimes financial help to expeditions (especially in Himalaya)
• taking over the civil liability related to the upkeep of climbing sites
• material and financial help to crag upkeepers
• technical help for the construction of climbing walls
• documentation (together with the COSIROC for climbing sites)
• organization of supervision of climbing competitions.

The sporting policy of the FFME is decided in several committees (Comités Sportifs) which are: Alpinism, Climbing, Expeditions (Comité Himalaya), Hiking, High mountain skiing Canyon descent (in cooperation with the Speleology Federation), Paralpinism. Locally, its decisions are made in the Regional Committees, subdivided in Département Committees whose members are the local associations or the local sections of the national associations (e.g.: Club Alpin Français, FSGT, GUMS, ASPTT, etc.).