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The National Police and the Gendarmerie have sole competency for arresting suspects, serving search warrants, and conducting enquiries (under the supervision of the judiciary). In some cases, customs officers may also have those competencies.

The powers of making a full arrest, hearing suspects, overseeing searches, etc. are restricted to members of the police or the gendarmerie with the qualification of "officer of judiciary police" (officier de police judiciaire), which includes all commissioned and non-commissioned officers of the Gendarmerie and commissaires (superintendents) and inspecteurs (detective inspectors) of the National Police. Lower ranking officers are only "agents of judiciary police" (agents de police judiciaire) and have only limited competences.

Local police forces operated by communes (cities and towns) and rural areas (garde champêtres), do not have many legal powers beyond traffic law enforcement and the normal citizen's arrest power that all persons have. Whether or not they should be allowed to carry firearms is a disputed issue.

1 Organization

The police is divided into directorates [1]:

• the directorate for the administration of the national police (DAPN)
• the directorate for training of the national police (DFPN)
• the central directorate for judiciary police (DCPJ), the criminal investigators.
• the Central Directorate for Public Security (DCSP), the uniformed patrol and response force.
• the Directorate of Territorial Security (DST), the Counter-intelligence service.
• the central directorate of the border police (DCPAF)
• the central directorate of general information [ renseignements généraux] (DCRG)The records keepers.
• the general inspection of the national police (IPGN) – internal affair s department
• the central directorate for the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (DCCRS) – riot police
• the service of technical international police cooperation (SCTIP)
• the service for the protection of important personalities (SPHP)

Security in the Paris area is the domain of the Paris Prefecture of Police [2].

2 See also

• Police in FranceThere are 4 main types of French police forces: the Police Nationale the Douanes the Gendarmerie the Police Municipale The Police Nationale is the most influential group, and has nationwide power. Secondly in influence is the Douanes ( border control), th
• PréfectureIn France, a prefecture is the capital city of a departement''. By extension, it is also the name of one of the governing bodies of the departement and of the building housing this government body. Role There are 100 prefectures in France. The civil serva