Police (france)

French law enforcement officers of the gendarmerie

Mounted police in Paris in March 2015

Bicycle Police on His -Ufer in Paris in March 2015, near the Eiffel Tower

The tasks of the police in France are carried out by three authorities. At national level, the one that exists Police nationale ( National Police ), which reports to the Interior Ministry. There is also the nationally organized military gendarmerie , for which both the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of the Interior are responsible. These national institutions at the local level by the assumed mayors Police municipale ( municipal police ) supplemented. Furthermore, in rural communities there are often Gardes champêtres ( field guardians ), who are mainly responsible for field protection and environmental protection. The police forces of the municipalities have only limited rights and are usually only allowed to monitor local law and compliance with traffic regulations. In addition, they support the national police authority responsible for the respective area (Gendarmerie or Police nationale). The community police officers often do not carry weapons.

The gendarmerie is responsible for rural areas and small towns up to a size of approx. 16,000 inhabitants. The police are responsible for urban areas.

However, the two authorities, the gendarmerie and the police, have clearly defined areas of competence in several areas:

• Police: Aliens and border police
• Gendarmerie: matters relating to the military, police duties at sea, duties at airfields and Garde républicaine

In addition, until 1984 the police were responsible for ambulance services and patient transport (Police secours). Then these areas were transferred to the fire brigades. The mountain rescue service is part of the gendarmerie (Peloton de gendarmerie de haute montagne) and is also part of the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité .

The national police are again divided into the Police administrative (roughly equivalent to the Schutzpolizei, but with limited enforcement rights) and the Police judiciaire (criminal police).

The Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS) is a barracked special unit of the national police , divided into regional groups and companies, whose areas of operation are comparable to those of the riot police in Germany (especially large areas ); The Gendarmerie mobile is responsible for tasks of this kind at the gendarmerie . Both the gendarmerie and the police maintain special units: at the gendarmerie, the Groupe d'intervention de la gendarmerie nationale (GIGN) and at the police, the investigation Assistance Intervention Dissuasion (RAID), with responsibility for aircraft hijacking, nuclear power plants, canal tunnels, trains and others vulnerable infrastructure, and the Groupe d'intervention de la Police nationale (GIPN). The gendarmerie also has armored and paramilitary units.

The civil law enforcement officers derive their self-image from the declaration of human and civil rights of 1789. The French gendarmerie was also created in 1791 immediately after the revolution and was the model for the gendarmerie in many other countries in the 19th century .

As part of a general reform, the ranks of the “civil” police forces in France were “militarized” at the end of the twentieth century, which makes it easier to identify who is superior to whom or who is subordinate to whom in inter-agency cooperation.

The term "flic"

Comparable to the German “ cop ”, but with less negative connotation than this term in today's parlance, the word “flic” is used in argot for a police officer in France . There is disagreement about the origin. Today's favored etymology is based on the old Franco-German word flique 'fly', in analogy to the argot term mouche 'fly' which was customary in the 19th century and which lives on today in mouchard 'spy' or 'spy'. A borrowing from the Alsatian , Schnallèflicker (the disrespectful term used by the Strasbourg for a national guard ), seems possible. The Duden , on the other hand, speaks of an origin from the Red Welschen : "flick", which simply means boy.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Volker Noll In: Vox Romanica 53 , 1994, pp. 209-214 https://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/romanistik/noll/noll-flic.pdf

Web links

Commons : Police of France  - Collection of images, videos and audio files