Royal Gendarmerie

From Daily Escape

Current revision as of 13:20, 15 October 2011

In France, the Royal Gendarmerie (French: Gendarmerie Royale) is the national gendarmerie and military police force. It has a strength of 312,825 personnel.

[edit] Missions

Its missions include:

• Policing of the countryside, rivers and coastal areas, and small towns with populations under 10,000 (outside of the jurisdiction of the French National Police). About half the French population is under the direct jurisdiction of the Gendarmerie.
• Criminal investigations under judiciary supervision.
• Crowd control and other security activities.
• Security of airports and military installations, as well as all investigations relating to the military, including in foreign interventions.
• Participation in ceremonies involving foreign heads of states or heads of governments.
• Provision of military police services to the military of France

[edit] Chain of command

While administratively a part of the French armed forces, thus under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence, it is operationally attached to the Ministry of the Interior for its operations within France, and criminal investigations are run under the supervision of prosecutors or investigating magistrates (judges). Its members operate in uniform, and occasionally in plainclothes.

[edit] Organization

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

[edit] Manpower

The Royal Gendarmerie consisted of 311,598 personnel in 2005. The military personnel of the Royal Gendarmerie is divided into:

• 12,507 officers and 227,526 warrant officers of gendarmerie;
• 462 officers and 11,187 warrant officers of the technical and administrative body;
• 47,271 section volunteers, from voluntary gengarmes (AGIV) and voluntary assistant gendarmes (GAV);
• 6,033 civilian personnel are divided into civil servants, state workers and contracted workers;
• 120,000 reserve personnel. This reserve force has not yet reached the authorised size limit. Only 75,000 men and women are signed up for reserve engagements (E.S.R.).

[edit] The Director-General

Général d'Armée Guy Parayre was appointed Director-General of the Gendarmerie on November 3, 2004, by the Council of Ministers. He officially took command on December 6, 2004, and succeeded Pierre Mutz. This nomination gave the Gendarmerie a director-general who rose through the ranks. Like the other staffs, the Gendarmerie is now directed at the highest level by a gendarme. Since October 1, 1933, and except for a period from August 1943 to July 1947, the director general had been a civilian, usually a judge, in accordance with the decree n° 73-259 of March 9, 1973.

[edit] Directorate-General

The headquarters of the force, called the Directorate-General of the Royal Gendarmerie, had been located since 1969 at rue St Didier in the XVI° district of the Paris Metropolis. As it grew, expansion was necessary, and now includes eleven other sites distributed throughout the capital and the outskirts of the city.

The Directorate-General of the national gendarmerie includes:
- the general staff, divided into offices and services,
- one inspectorate of gendarmerie (IGN), - the inspector-general
- three services including/understanding each subdirectorate,

• The Inspectorate of the Royal Gendarmerie (I.G.N) - responsible for studies, information and control. In particular for:
  

- the judicial enquiries into gendarme misconduct.
- the control and the administrative council of the formations of the gendarmerie as well as the economic analysis of the management led by these same formations.
- measurements of prevention and control relating to hygiene, the safety and the working conditions.

• Human Resources Service (S.R.H.) - The general, chief of the service of human resources directs the management of the whole of the personnel of the gendarmerie, as well as the policy of recruitment and training of this personnel.
• Plans and Means Service (S.P.M.) - The controller general, chief of the service of the plans and means, translated into plans and programs budgetary objectives of the gendarmerie.
• Operations and Employment Service (S.O.E.) - The general, chief of the service of the operations and employment, has authority on:
  

- the subdirectorate of the organization and the evaluation,
- the subdirectorate of the international co-operation,
- the subdirectorate of defense and the law and order,
- the subdirectorate of public safety and the road safety,
- the subdirectorate of the Criminal Investigation Department.

The Directorate-General takes part in the correct operation of the organization. It works:
- for the units of the ground and with their profit (at the regional level, the areas and the legions are the essential interfaces so that the decisions taken in Paris correspond well to the needs felt on the ground);
- as a body of decision-making aid political for all that concerns the gendarmerie in police headquarters (budget, employment…).

It employs 8,973 active soldiers, 1,269 civilian volunteers, and 1,089 other personnel (2004 figures).

[edit] The Departmental Gendarmerie

The Departmental Gendarmerie, or Gendarmerie Départementale, also named La Blanche ("The White"), conducts local policing functions throughout the French territory. Its territorial divisions are based on the administrative divisions of France, particularly the departments from which the Departmental Gendarmerie derives its name.

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 region), themselves divided into groupements (one for each département), themselves divided into compagnies (one for each arrondissement).

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 high crime areas;
• Units for prevention of juvenile delinquency;
• Highway patrols;
• Mountain units, specialized in search and rescue operations, surveillance and inquiries in mountainous areas.

In addition, the Gendarmerie has an institute (Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale) specializing in the investigation of crimes by scientific and technological means.

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

[edit] The Mobile Gendarmerie

The Mobile Gendarmerie, or Gendarmerie Mobile, also named La Jaune ("The Yellow"), is divided into legions, similarly to the Departmental Gendarmerie.

Its main responsibilities are

• Crowd and riot control;
• Security of public buildings;
• All policing tasks that require large amounts of personnel (Vigipirate counter-terrorism patrols, searches in the countryside, etc.)

Such units may intervene abroad in varied cases such as a hostage crisis or the support of peacekeeping operations.

The tasks of the gendarmes mobiles tasks are similar to those of the police units known as Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), for which they are often mistaken. Easy ways to distinguish them include:

• The uniform of the CRS is blue; the gendarmes mobiles are clad in black;
• The CRS wear a big red CRS patch; the gendarmes have stylized grenades.

[edit] Specialized units

It has the following specialised units:

• The security and intervention group of the Gendarmerie Royale (GSIGN), consisting of:
  • The intervention group of the Gendarmerie Royale (GIGN), an elite counter-terrorism and hostage rescue unit;
  • The three parachutist squadrons of the Gendarmerie Royale (EPIGN)
• Armored units:
  • 51 mobile squadrons equipped with tactical trucks and VAB armored personnel carriers, throughout the French territory;
  • The armored group at Versailles-Satory, consisting of nine squadrons of VAB wheeled armored personnel carriers and three squadrons of ERC 90 Sagaie heavy armored cars with 90mm cannons

[edit] Special divisions

[edit] Naval Gendarmerie

Please see the main article for further details

[edit] Air Transport Gendarmerie

The Air Transport Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie des Transports Aériens) has the following missions:

• Police and security in civilian airfields and airports;
• Filtering access to aircraft, counter-terrorism and counter-narcotic activities, freight surveillance;
• Surveillance of technical installations of the airports (control tower...);
• Traffic control on the roads within the airports;
• Protection of important visitors stopping for a layover;
• Judiciary inquiries pertaining to accidents of civilian aircraft.

[edit] Air Gendarmerie

The Air Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie de l'Air) is placed under the dual supervision of the Gendarmerie and the Air Force; it fulfills police and security missions in the air bases, and goes on the site of accident of military aircraft.

[edit] Ordnance Gendarmerie

The Ordnance Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie de l'Armement) fulfills police and security missions in the establishments of the Délégation Générale pour l'Armement (France's defense procurement agency).