Home > French Gendarmerie

• The policing of countryside areas and of small towns, usually populations under 10000, outside of the jurisdiction of the French National Police.
• Criminal investigations under judiciary supervision.
• Crowd control and other security activities.
• The security of airports and military installations, as well as all investigations relating to the military, including in foreign interventions.
• Participations in ceremonies involving foreign heads of states or heads of governments.

See gendarmerie for similar forces in other countries.

While administratively a part of the armed forces, thus under the aegis of the Ministry of Defense, it is operationally attached to the Ministry of the Interior for its missions within France, and criminal investigations are run under the supervision of judges. Its members operate in uniform and exceptionally in plainclothes.

Career gendarmes are either commissioned or non-commissioned officers. The lower ranks consist in auxiliary gendarmes on limited-time contracts.

The officer school of the Gendarmerie Nationale is located in Melun.

The Gendarmerie Nationale is divided into the gendarmerie départementale and the gendarmerie mobile.

1 The Gendarmerie Départementale

The Gendarmerie Départementale conducts local policing functions throughout the French territory. Its uniforms are blue.

It is divided into regions (headed by a general, one for each defense zone), themselves divided into legions (headed by a colonel, one for each administrative regionA region can also be any area, typically but not necessarily smaller than a country. Regierungsbezirk (regions of Germany) Regions of England Regions of the Philippines Regions of England Regions of Finland Communities, regions and provinces of Belgium Li), themselves divided into groupements (one for each départementThe departements (or departments) are administrative units of France, roughly analogous to British counties and are now grouped into 22 metropolitan and four overseas regions''. They are subdivided into 342 arrondissements''. Departements are also found i, thus the name), themselves divided into compagnies (one for each arrondissementAn arrondissement is an administrative division in some francophone countries: France Paris Main article: Arrondissements of Paris The city of Paris, in France is divided into 20 arrondissements . Marseille and Lyon The French cities Marseille and Lyon ar).

It maintains gendarmerie stations throughout the rural parts of the territory. In addition, it has specialized units:

• Research units, who conduct criminal investigations when their difficulty exceeds the abilities of the territorial units;
• Surveillance and intervention units reinforce gendarmerie forces in areas of high delinquency ;
• Units for prevention of juvenile delinquencyJuvenile delinquency refers to antisocial or criminal acts performed by juveniles. It is an important social issue because juveniles are capable of committing serious crimes, but society must also recognize that responsibility for juvenile behavior goes b;
• Highway patrolsThe term highway patrol can refer either to a police agency created primarily for the purpose of overseeing traffic safety compliance on a polity's roads and highways, such as the California Highway Patrol, or to a detail within an existing local or regio
• Mountain units, specialized in search and rescueprehospital care rescue Search and Rescue ( acronym SAR) is an operation mounted by emergency services, often well-trained volunteers, to find someone believed to be in distress, lost, sick or injured either in a remote or difficult to access area, such a operations, surveillance and inquiries in mountaineous areas.

Note that the research units may be called into action by the judiciary even within cities. As an example, the Paris research section of the Gendarmerie was in charge of the enquiries into the vote-rigging allegations in the 5th district of Paris (see corruption scandals in the Paris regionIn the 1980s and 1990s there have been in the Paris region ( Ile-de-France) multiple instances of alleged and proved political corruption cases, as well as cases of abuse of public money and resources. In most, members of the Conservative Rally for the Re).

Gendarmes normally operate in uniform. They may operate in plainclothes only for specific missions and with their supervisors' authorization.