Law enforcement in France

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Policemen and gendarmes mobiles guarding the Ministry of Culture during a street protest
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Policemen and gendarmes mobiles guarding the Ministry of Culture during a street protest
French Gendarmes guarding the Paris Hall of Justice
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French Gendarmes guarding the Paris Hall of Justice

Contents

[edit] Organizations

[edit] Agencies

France has two national general-purpose law enforcement agencies:

Those three agencies are the only ones legally capable of making full arrests or serving search warrants.

A similar diffusion exists, or has existed, in several other countries following the French system.

[edit] Other agencies

French municipalities may also have a local police called the police municipale, garde municipale or garde champetre, with restricted powers: they can only enforce the municipal by-laws (amongst which those related to the road circulation) and participate in prevention actions (survey, evacuation of buildings, protection against accidents, etc.). These personnel may or may not be allowed to bear firearms.

  • Local governments (communes) may maintain a Police Municipale ("Municipal police") forces, which have very limited law enforcement powers outside of traffic issues and local ordinance enforcement
    • Rural communes may also form a garde champetre or Police Rurale ("Rural Police"), which is responsible for limited local patrol and protecting the environment
  • The Department of Corrections (Administration pénitentiaire) operates Équipes régionales d’intervention et de sécurité (SWAT teams)
  • In Wallis and Futuna, there is a territorial guard as well as royal police.

[edit] Police vs Gendarmerie

The existence of two national police forces with similar goals and attributions, but somewhat different zones of activity, has at times created friction or competition between the two. Their merging has sometimes been suggested.

Since 1941, the division of the zones of activity between the Police and the Gendarmerie was that cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants were handled by the Police, and the remaining ones by the Gendarmerie. However, with the development of suburban dwellings, this had increasingly proved inadequate. Furthermore, the shifting of a town from a Police to a Gendarmerie zone was often controversial, because, typically, a gendarmerie units serves a wide area. A redistribution of competency was thus decided, and implemented between 2003 and 2005. Large conurbations will be handled by the Police in their entirety. Rural and suburban areas, as well as some smaller cities with populations ranging from 5,000 to 16,000, will be handled by the Gendarmerie.[1]

In addition, the Police and the Gendarmerie have specific zones of competency:

  • the Police handles questions regarding the entrance and stay of foreigners (border police);
  • the Gendarmerie handles all matters regarding the military, as well as police at sea, the security of airports, and the security of certain public buildings (Republican Guard).

In French, the term "police" not only refers to the forces, but also to the general concept of "maintenance of law and order" (policing). There are two types of police in this general sense:

  • administrative police (police administrative): uniformed preventative patrols, traffic duties etc., with limited powers of arrest.
  • judicial police (police judiciaire): law enforcement and investigation of crime, with full powers of arrest.

Thus, the mayor has administrative police power in a town (i.e. they can order the police to enforce the municipal by-laws), and a judge has police power in their court (i.e. they can have people who disrupt the proceedings expelled from the court room).

Until 1984, the National Police was involved in the prehospital care and casualty transport (Police secours). The prehospital care is now performed by firefighters; however, mountain rescue is performed by the Gendarmerie PGHM (Peloton de gendarmerie de haute montagne) and the National Police CRS (Compagnies républicaines de sécurité; Republican Security Companies).

Some other countries follow this model and have separate police agencies with the same role but different jurisdictions.

Local Police or Gendarmerie precincts may not be capable of conducting complex investigations. For this reason, both the Police and the Gendarmerie maintain regional services dedicated to criminal investigations (police judiciaire); these are known as "regional services of judiciary police" in the Police, "research sections" in the Gendarmerie. In addition, both the Police and the Gendarmerie maintain laboratories dedicated to forensics. Most criminal enquiries are conducted by the Police. Justice may choose either service; sometimes, if the judiciary is disappointed by the results or the methods of one service, it may give the enquiry to the other service.

The National Police also features some central offices with national jurisdiction, charged with specific missions, such as the national anti-terrorist division.

Both the Police and the Gendarmerie have SWAT teams. The Gendarmerie has the foremost and best-known, the GIGN; the Police has the RAID and the GIPN groups. The Gendarmerie also has armored and paratroops squadrons.

Both the Police and the Gendarmerie have riot control forces: the CRS for the Police, the gendarmerie mobile for the Gendarmerie (which are often mistaken for the former). They intervene throughout the country.

One justification for the maintenance of a military force handling matters of civilian police is that the military cannot unionize, contrary to civilian civil servants such as the Police, which may make management easier. The gendarmes found a workaround by forming associations of spouses of gendarmes.

[edit] Procedures

[edit] Administrative policing

The police administrative comprises a variety of actions undertaken under the direction and supervision of the executive branch, notably the prefect, police and gendarmerie forces conduct a variety of actions ensuring public order. They include:

[edit] Judicial policing

The police judiciaire comprises a variety of actions undertaken under the direction and supervision of the judiciary. They include:

These actions must follow the rules given in the Code of Penal Procedure (Code de procédure pénale), articles 12 to 29.

In order to better fulfill these missions, some sections of the French National Police (police judiciaire) are specialized in criminal enquiries; the Gendarmerie counterpart are the sections de recherche (research sections).

[edit] Rights and limitations

The powers of French Police and Gendarmerie forces are constrained by statute law and jurisprudence. The rules of procedure depend on the stage of enquiry:

  • Crimes committed in flagrante delicto, in which a suspect was found committing the crime, or pursued by witnesses, or found in possession of objects from the crime or other probable cause.
  • Preliminary enquiries — it is unsure whether a crime, or which crime, has been committed, but there exist good reasons to believe this might be the case.
  • Judicial information — an investigative magistrate (a judge, external to the police) supervises an enquiry on a case where it is certain, or at least very probable, that a crime has been committed.

In particular, outside of crimes in flagrante delicto, law enforcement forces may not conduct searches or arrests without a specific commission from the investigative magistrate.

Not all law-enforcement officers are capable of making full arrests or conducting searches; these powers are by law restricted to those have special legal qualifications (see next section).

[edit] Officers and agents of judiciary police

The procedures that police and gendarmerie officers follow when conducting criminal enquiries are set by the Code of Criminal procedure (Code de procédure pénale) and applicable jurisprudence. Criminal enquiries are conducted under the supervision of the judiciary (depending on the phase, under the supervision of the public prosecutor or of an investigative judge).

Two important notions are those of "officer of judiciary police" (officier de police judiciaire or OPJ), "agent of judiciary police" (agent de police judiciaire or APJ) and "agent of judiciary police assistant" (APJ adjoint).

  • Mayors and deputy mayors. This disposition is rarely used.
  • In the National Police, these are OPJs:
    • the commissionners and above ranks;
    • the titular members of the corps de commande et d'encadrement nominally listed in a joint decision by the Ministers of Justice and of the Interior;
    • members of the Corps de maîtrise et d'application who have completed 3 years of service, are affected in some specific services, and are nominally listed in a joint decision by the Ministers of Justice and of the Interior.
  • In the National Gendarmerie, these are OPJs:
    • commissioned officers
    • non-commissioned officers having completed 3 years of service, nominally designated by a joint decision by the Ministers of Justice and of Defense.

These ministerial nomination decisions may only be taken after the approval of a specific commission. The current rules also warrant the completion of an examination pertaining to legal matters.

Most other members of the National Police and Gendarmerie are APJs. The remaining members of the National Police, as well as members of municipal police forces, are APJ assistants.

Only OPJs may perform full arrests or serve search warrants; APJs may only assist them in these talks. In case a suspect has been apprehended by an APJ, he/she must be brought before an OPJ for a full arrest. According to the law, any citizen can apprehend the author of a crime or of an offence that can be punished by a prison sentence (citizen's arrest), and lead him/her to an OPJ (this includes APJ, APJ assistants). However, this is problematic in case of a "simple" citizen due to the estimation of what can be punished by a prison sentence or not, and due to possible abuse (abuses are a restriction of the individual freedom and can be sued for illegal confinement).

In all cases, the prerogatives of an OPJ may only be exercised if they are affected to a position where these are needed, and by nominal decision of the general prosecutor of their area. These prerogatives are temporarily suspended when they engage, in an organized force, in an operation of public order (i.e. riot control).

The quality of officer of judiciary police may be withdrawn by the Judiciary if the officer has behaved in an inappropriate fashion. The general prosecutor grades OPJs, and these grades are taken into account for possible promotions.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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