Policing in France

Jacques de Maillard, Wesley Skogan, Jacques de Maillard, Wesley G. Skogan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429648861
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

The eminent contributors to a new collection, Policing in France, provide an updated and realistic picture of how the French police system really works in the 21st century. In most international comparisons, France typifies the "Napoleonic" model for policing, one featuring administrative and political centralization, a strong hierarchical structure, distance from local communities, and a high priority on political policing. France has undergone a process of pluralization in the last 30 years. French administrative and political decentralization has reemphasized the role of local authorities in public security policies; the private security industry has grown significantly; and new kinds of governing models (based on arrangements such as contracts for service provision) have emerged. In addition, during this period, police organizations have been driven toward central government control through the imposition of performance indicators, and a top-down decision was made to integrate the national gendarmerie into the Ministry of Interior.

The book addresses how police legitimacy differs across socioeconomic, generational, territorial, and ethnic lines. An analysis of the policing of banlieues (deprived neighborhoods) illustrates the convergence of contradictory police goals, police violence, the concentration of poverty, and entrenched opposition to the states' representatives, and questions policing strategies such as the use of identity checks. The collection also frames the scope of community policing initiatives required to deal with the public's security needs and delves into the security challenges presented by terrorist threats and the nuances of the relationship between policing and intelligence agencies. Identifying and explaining the diverse challenges facing French police organizations and how they have been responding to them, this book draws upon a flourishing French-language literature in history, sociology, political science, and law to produce this new English-language synthesis on policing in France.

This book is a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners working in and around French policing, as well as students of international law enforcement.

Chapter 1

Policing in France

Jacques de Maillard and Wesley G. Skogan

Police Research in France

Until the early 1980s, social science research on policing issues was extremely rare in France. Most of what was written was essays by politicians, investigations by journalists or, more often, memoirs by former police officers. The rare academic works were dominated by narrowly legal approaches describing police powers and their legal framework, or philosophical texts discussing in the abstract what police powers should be. While these publications were of interest, they took little account of police practices in the field and the dynamic features of police organizational life. For many academics, policing in action was a “dirty subject,” one associated with the mundane and sometimes unpleasant daily functions of the state (see Berlière and Lévy 2011, pp. 10–11). At the same time, the police saw their external observers as excessively critical, engaged in the needless airing of the organizational and political realities they struggled to deal with.

While police research in the United States began to develop in the early 1960s (Skogan and Frydl 2004), in France the start came later, in the 1980s. It was the work of a few pioneers who, in sociology, political science or history, invested in this field of research. Without the list being exhaustive, the research of René Lévy (1987) on the work of the judicial police, Jean-Marc Berlière (1992) on the professionalization of policing under the Third Republic, and Pierre Favre (1990) on the policing of political protests, were the among first social science inquiries in the field. But above all, the emergence of this field of research was led by the sociologist Dominique Monjardet. Coming from the sociology of occupations, where he had already carried out promising work, he stood at the origins of empirical research on public security and public order policing (see for a synthesis see Monjardet 1996 or 2008). It should be noted that the development of this field benefited from the creation of units such as the Institut des hautes études de la sécurité intérieure (IHESI) within the Ministry of the Interior in 1989. Research institutes brought together researchers and provided funding, and kindled forums for exchanges between academics and practitioners. The journal Les Cahiers de la sécurité intérieure, published by IHESI, provided an outlet for these activities.¹

Almost forty years later, the situation is quite different. Research on policing seems solidly established (although see Ocqueteau and Monjardet (2005) on the complex relationship between research and the Ministry of the Interior). It is not possible in this short introduction to give a comprehensive overview of research conducted on French policing, but the variety of research fields that are being explored should be mentioned. These include the emergence of modern police forces, the history of colonial police forces, the professionalization of policing in the contemporary era, changing models of policing, policing during repressive periods in French history (for example, during the German occupation of the 1940s), the feminization of the police, stop and search practices, police relations with young people from minority backgrounds, efforts toward police reform, the introduction of neo-managerialism, the work of oversight bodies, the role of police in maintaining public order, the professional socialization of police officers, political surveillance, and police involvement in partnerships with other organizations and the community. Research on many of these topics have been published in major French social science journals, either generalist (Revue française de sociologie, Revue française de science politique, Sociologie du travail, and Vingtième siècle), or thematic (Champ pénal, Déviance et Société, and Cultures et conflits).

However, in this brief assessment one is struck by a paradox. On the one hand, this research has been very open to theories, concepts, and methods developed in other countries. This is illustrated by the work co-directed by Jean-Paul Brodeur and Dominique Monjardet (2003) that was devoted to the major texts of Anglo-Saxon research. Research in France has also internationalized and become involved in cross-national comparisons (Berlière et al. 2008; de Maillard 2017; de Maillard and Roché 2009; Fillieule and Della Porta 2006; Houte and Luc 2016). On the other hand, much of this work has not been translated into English, giving much of the world a restricted picture of police research in France.² Thus the core mission of this book is to promote a broader understanding of the police system, police practices, and relations between police and the public in France, with a collection of original essays on key topics that are based on recent social science research.

France: A Centralized Dualist System

In international typologies (see Bayley 1985), France is presented as a dualist, centralized system, consisting mainly of two national police forces, one civilian (the police nationale) and the other military (the gendarmerie nationale).³ These two police forces are controlled by the central state and have distinct territories of action. The police nationale is active in urban areas, while the gendarmerie is traditionally responsible for rural and suburban areas. The police nationale is often described as responsible for 5% of the territory, 50% of the population, and 70% of delinquency, whereas the gendarmerie is responsible for 95% of the territory, 50% of the population, and 30% of delinquency. As we will see, these two institutions have distinct identities.

Police and Gendarmerie: Between Competition and Cooperation

The gendarmerie is an ancient institution, heir to the “Maréchaussée” of the Middle Ages. Malcolm Anderson, in his chapter, recalls the strong esprit de corps of the gendarmerie, marked by its military identity. The gendarmerie is considered an “arm of the state” (une arme), the gendarmes still define themselves today as “soldiers of the law.” The national police is a more recent institution – the repository of the many transformations that have affected the police in urban areas since the 18th century. As Jean-Marc Berlière and René Lévy point out in their chapter, it is not one police force that France has experienced, but multiple and competing ones. Two dates are important for understanding the relatively late process of unification the police nationale. In 1941, under the Vichy regime, a decree-law was adopted nationalizing the municipal police forces of towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants, which resulted in the forces virtual disappearance as an independent entity. Second, in 1966, the General Directorate of the National Police was created, which integrated the previously autonomous Prefecture of Police (responsible for the policing of the national capital, Paris) into the national policing apparatus.

The identities of these institutions, shaped by history, are very distinctive. Gendarmes have military status and work in uniform in rural areas. They are often well integrated into local life. Until the 2000s they reported to the Ministry of Defense. The police nationale are stationed in cities, traditionally valuing criminal investigations and more often found working in civilian clothes. They report to the Ministry of the Interior, and they also have more tense relations with the public. The two bodies pursue somewhat different professional models, and they differ in unionization. The gendarmerie is not unionized (but since the 2000s they have a professional association), while the police nationale is represented by powerful trade unions.

This division between the police and the gendarmerie has resulted in notable cross-criticism, sharpened by implicit competition between them. As Malcolm Anderson’s chapter describes, this rivalry has manifested itself in their duplication of functions. For example, the gendarmerie enhanced their investigative capacity during the 1980s by creating their own scientific and technical laboratories, doing so to the great displeasure of the police nationale, which traditionally did this work for them. Similarly, in the 1980s, the police nationale created an elite intervention unit based on the model of the Gendarmerie Intervention Group created in 1974.

In 2009, a potentially major change took place when the gendarmerie was moved under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior. This resulted in a greater harmonization of their organizational practices, pay schedules, adoption of a common code of ethics, and the creation of a joint directorate for international cooperation. But distinctions and rivalries between the two remain strong. The police and gendarmerie have different general directorates, different training schools, and separate operational doctrines. Inevitably, they compete for shares of the budget of the Ministry of the Interior.

Dualism thus remains a central facet of the French police system. The two branches have distinct organizational cultures, which are shaped in part by their respective professional training facilities. Police national leaders study at the Ecole nationale supérieure de la police, in Saint-Cyr near Lyon, while gendarmerie executives are trained at the Ecole des officiers de la gendarmerie nationale in Melun, near Paris. Many gendarmerie leaders are earlier graduates of Saint-Cyr, a prestigious military school. But these rivalries are also encouraged by the magistrates, as prosecutors may in some cases favor one branch or the other. Higher up, President François Mitterrand significantly entrusted his security to the gendarmes in 1981, whereas President Nicolas Sarkozy did the opposite in 2007. Dualism is a deeply institutionalized feature of the French police system.

Between Rationalization and the Pathologies of Centralization

Centralism is the second dominant aspect of the French system. France is one of the rare large countries where national police forces carry out local law enforcement, investigations, intelligence gathering, and the protection of daily public security. These activities are organized along extended hierarchical chains that run from the minister of the interior to the policeman in the field, a hierarchy comprising more than a dozen different levels. The pyramidal logic of police systems is fully in force here. Decisions are taken in Paris that are applied in Brittany, Alsace, and Corsica. As historians have clearly shown, this centralization is inseparable from the way the state was built in France, and from the logic of control by the center of the peripheries. The role played by the gendarmerie during the 19th century in the construction of the nation and consolidation of state control of rural areas was, for example, essential (Lignereux 2008). According to police and gendarmerie officials, senior civil servants, and principal political leaders, this historical centralization is an advantage of the French system as it faces contemporary challenges. These include action against cybercrime, the fight against terrorism, and international cooperation, all of which are facilitated by nationalized organizations that allow for an easier exchange of information as well as economies of scale through the pooling of resources. This centralization is thought to guarantee rational and effective action, and also greater equality of police protection throughout French territory.

However, as Christian Mouhanna shows in his chapter, the pathologies associated with centralization are numerous. It reinforces the bureaucratic and opaque character of police action. Accountability is seen as a vertical concept, imposed by central policies and hierarchical relationships, although in practice these are always discreetly counterbalanced by circumventions and adaptations on the part of subordinates faced with getting the work done. Centralization also contributes to downward management based solely on crime figures, which in turn favors political posturing featuring repressive action against (measures of) crime. Several chapters recount the role played by Nicolas Sarkozy as the ministry of the interior and president of the Republic in shaping an exaggerated version of police centralization during his administrations.

To say that the French police system is centralized and dualist does not mean that police action is totally controlled by the state and that vertical logics apply mechanically. Studies in the sociology of organizations have long shown the difficulties involved in making centralization work. The chains of command are long, it is hard to keep sensitive communications confidential, and policing often requires cooperation with other public agencies that is better managed at the local level. We have already stressed the competitive nature of relations between the police nationale and gendarmerie. The same is true for relations within the police. Although formally integrated within the general directorate of the national police force, the Paris Prefecture of Police enjoys a very high degree of autonomy, to the point that we can sometimes speak of three state police forces: the gendarmerie, the police national, and the prefecture.

Between Specialization and Attempts at Integration

A striking tension within French policing is that of the dialectic between the specialization of police techniques and organizations on the one hand and attempts to merge or create new units to facilitate information sharing on the other. Specialization is a classic feature of police organizations. As they develop, they are often marked by the internal multiplication of activities and units that are based on specialized interests and knowledge (see Maguire 2014). In the French national police, the logic of specialization has even been embodied in the structuring of national directorates organized by specific functions. There are central directorates for the border police, the judicial police, special protest and riot policing units and public safety. Specialization is usually seen as a way of creating elite units that focus on investigations and interventions and sit on top of the police prestige hierarchy. Elodie Lemaire’s chapter documents how the process of specialization is also found within so-called ordinary police services. Based on field work within an investigative service in a départment (a French political and administrative territorial level), she shows how, in the space of a decade or so, specialized units multiplied. From a few brigades dealing with undifferentiated cases in the early 1990s, by the mid-2000s most of their work was successively subdivided into a dozen specialized units focusing of issues ranging from car thefts to phone thefts and payment fraud. Increased specialization was a response by police managers to political demands for improved results, and reorganization made it possible to achieve results in line with political and organizational expectations. They were also a way of affirming symbolically that the problem was being taken care of. Further, it was also a way of finding tasks of suitable status for graduate officers when actual opportunities for professional development within the organization were limited. But Lemaire shows the perverse effects of this strategy. It led to a re-concentration of managerial control in the hands of leadership, along with the standardization of practices, plus fragmentation through specialization led to reduced autonomy for police personnel.

Clément de Maillard’s chapter compliments this analysis. It examines attempts to correct the limitations arising from excessive unit specialization by setting up new units responsible for collecting and analyzing data and promoting more global criminal approaches, in a manner similar to discussions of intelligence-led policing. Using the example of the gang war in Marseilles in the early 2010s, an event which resulted in a rapid rise in homicides in a context of increased competition in drug trafficking, it documents how various police units were not able to anticipate this phenomenon because they each had their own networks of informers and their own list of usual suspects. The ensuing reform effort involved the creation of units such as SIRASCO in the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police, which analyses organized crime groups based on their origin. There were also new training and analytic advances, such as the development of an application for criminal intelligence management in the gendarmerie. However, the reception of these new capabilities is still evolving. Their added value is difficult to determine, and many police officers question their lack of visible and measurable results. Organizational rivalries also continue. And Clément de Maillard emphasizes the extent to which the centralized French system remains ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Series Editor’s Preface
• 1. Policing in France
• PART I: Historical Background
• PART II: Organizational Features and Reforms
• PART III: Changing Institutional and Political Context
• PART IV: Police Problems and Strategies
• Index