Abstract:
The data come from three main sources: public data, an extract from the computer file of the members of the French Federation of Speleology (FFS) and a survey carried out among 285 FFS members. The importance of independent practice out of the FFS must be stressed as well as the difficulty to keep new members loyal to the federation because of a high "turn-over". France ranks high among nations as regards the numbers of practising people. Like many other federations of natural outdoors activities, FFS cavers are mostly men. The average age is over 30. Like most sportsmen, speleologists are generally well-to-do or belong to the middle class, with a fairly high academic background. The geographical breakdown of speleologists shows contradictory results: today cavers tend to be more numerous in the vicinity of caves ("countryside caving"), but statistics show that cavers are also mostly town-dwellers, like the great majority of sportsmen. It should be noted that, contrary to sportsmen, the increase in the number of FFS members is due to the expansion of rural speleology rather than to urban recruitment. Present day speleology is going through a period of transition. The large urban teams who have promoted speleology so far, are progressively being replaced by small size teams, living close to caves: such a change has been made possible thanks to new technology.