Our Principle contractor is intending to sub-contract some civil work to a French company. Does any one know if the French have equivalents to the UK CSCS scheme, FLT and MEWP licences? Do the French have a basic safety awarness training scheme?

IMO forget what they do elsewhere just make sure everyone complies with UK laws. "when in Rome ............."

It would also be worth bearing in mind that there will be differences in safety culture and perception of risk between the UK contractor and French civils sub contractor. As Chris suggests, if they are working in the UK, under UK legislation, then the workers need to understand the differences between the different working cultures. On a recent site, the foreign workers thought nothing of hanging off the side of scaffolding and working platforms. In their country (from what their supervisor explained) it is acceptable for them to hang over the side of scaffolding provided they could hook their elbow around the standards. In my opinion this is an unacceptable risk.

If they are coming over here to work I can see where C Burns is coming from and I tend to agree. Get them on a course here covering UK stuff. On a separate note, there was a chap who used to post on this site called Merv. I think that he lived and worked in France, seemed to be a bit of a knowledge fountain re: Frenchy stuff. He didn’t speak with forked tongue either, which is nice. He is on the members list.................