APPRAISAL OF THE

NATIONAL

GENDARMERIE’S

ATTACHMENT TO THE

MINISTRY

OF THE INTERIOR

Communication to the Senate Finance Committee

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Executive summary

The organic and functional attachment of the Gendarmerie to the Ministry of the Interior

was carried out by law no. 2009-971 of 3 August 2009. This was the culmination of a process

initiated in 2002, when the Minister of the Interior became responsible for the use of force to

serve domestic security, a process that preserved the military status of gendarmes. As such,

the organisation of domestic security remains characterised by the existence of two forces,

one civilian and the other military.

Eleven years after being attached to the Ministry of the Interior, the Gendarmerie has

found its place and adapted, while retaining its specific characteristics. This attachment had a

ripple effect and the two forces learned to work together more extensively. However, they can

still make progress in their cooperation.

Despite undeniable progress, operational synergies between the two security

forces remain limited

The French police dualism is a product of the country's history, as well as its geography

and demography, which resulted in two separate forces being maintained for cities and the

countryside. The legislator did not want to challenge this arrangement, and even consolidated

it by reasserting, from article 1 of the law of 3 August 2009, the place and specific nature of

the National Gendarmerie. The public authorities have two distinct and complementary forces,

giving them a wide range of military and civilian capabilities that can be combined and

complement each other.

The two forces' territorial organisation is characterised by a distribution of roles,

entrusting the urban environment to the police and rural and suburban areas to the

Gendarmerie. Several redeployments of areas of competence have taken place since 2003,

although this distribution has not been precisely refined beyond this general principle. The

situation has not changed since 2015, following recent transfers that are fairly modest and still

balanced, concerning the numbers in each force concerned. As part of the work on the White

Paper on domestic security of November 2020, the general directorates of the national police

and Gendarmerie made proposals on the terms of possible future transfers. However,

differences persist regarding the population threshold to take into account and the possible

switch to a Gendarmerie zone of key towns or even entire departments of France, while

changes in crime and the population covered call for an adaptation of the criteria setting the

two forces' territorial competence. In particular, it could be desirable to take into account each

force's policing doctrine and how it is organised, so as to assign competence over specific

crime areas to the force that would appear best able to respond to the issues arising there.

The Gendarmerie has streamlined its structures and its territorial missions over the last

20 years, mostly under budgetary pressure. Although it has endeavoured to maintain a

presence among the public, the distribution of staff is not always aligned with the population

covered or the level of crime, which leaves room for improvement.

Regarding operational matters, the 2009 law fosters interconnectedness and

cooperation between the two forces and encourages them to develop synergies with each

other. This is all the more necessary because their organisation and their management

methods are separate and contrasting: the Gendarmerie's chain of command is more

integrated and less specialised in terms of activities than the police. Cross-sectoral systems

have been created to facilitate the conduct of common or joint missions between the two

forces, at both central and local levels. They are used unevenly, particularly locally, despite

the departmental prefect's functional and hierarchical authority over the command of the

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Gendarmerie groups. Divergent practices, even tensions, exist between the two forces

concerning the main priority missions (judicial police, territorial intelligence, the fight against

terrorism and maintaining order).

Although the fourteen central judicial police offices (ten headed by the police and four by

the Gendarmerie) include staff from both forces, their functioning usually strongly leans

towards their reference force, while staff from the other force are rarely honoured to the

expected level. Intelligence on organised crime is not extensively shared between the two

forces and the fight against cybercrime suffers from a certain lack of coordination.

Since 2009, the Gendarmerie's intelligence function has undergone far-reaching

changes. It actively participates in the territorial chain of intelligence, under the responsibility

of the national police, contributing 15% of the total territorial intelligence staff, but does not

have an equal role in defining strategy or allocating service resources. The current distribution

of skills and resources of the Gendarmerie and the central territorial intelligence service does

not foster the optimisation of resources and actions. Reorganising territorial intelligence by

bringing together all of these resources within a single department would make it possible to

resolve this difficulty.

The police and Gendarmerie specialised intervention forces, which are involved in the

fight against terrorism in particular, have seen their numbers increase significantly. However,

they remain very independent from each other, despite a national intervention plan in April

2016 that aims to strengthen their operational coordination in the event of a crisis intervention.

A united direction and management for these intervention forces, under the aegis of the

Intervention Force Coordination Unit (UCOFI)

–

whose missions and resources would need to

be changed

–

would facilitate the definition of a common policing doctrine, as well as synergies

and the streamlining of their resources.

Meanwhile, the national plan for maintaining order presented in September 2020 aims

to more effectively coordinate the management of maintaining public order, in which mobile

forces of the police and the Gendarmerie are involved, very much so in Paris at present.

Pooling between security forces, accelerated by the attachment, still has room

for

progress

The National Gendarmerie's attachment to the Ministry of the Interior has not been the

subject of an impact study. No multi-year budget savings target was precisely defined before

the law was passed. The Ministry of the Interior would however have had good grounds to

formalise a plan for streamlining and pooling the resources and missions of the two forces,

which it did not do.

Nevertheless, in several areas a pooling of structures, in the short or medium term,

appeared feasible for the purpose of improved coordination between the two forces, while

respecting the military status of the Gendarmerie and preserving its capabilities for action in

all circumstances.

The pooling and streamlining of the support resources between the two forces was

carried out on a voluntary basis, although on the basis of objectives in principle without any

quantified interpretation. New pooled departments between the two forces have been created,

at a central or local level, mainly at the level of the defence and security zone.

The Directorate of International Cooperation (DCI), pooled between the police and the

Gendarmerie, enabled the latter to position itself on a subject on which it had little influence at

the Ministry of the Armed Forces, with the national police retaining its own capacity for action,

which is essential in this area within the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ).

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A shared support structure, the internal security information technology service (ST(SI)²),

relies on the Gendarmerie's recognised initiative capability in the field of digital technology and

the fight against cybercrime. Over ten years and the course of nearly fifty projects, this has

made it possible, aside from the decompartmentalisation of files initially not shared between

the national police and the Gendarmerie, to develop innovative solutions that benefit both

forces. It is now functionally attached to a new digital department (DNUM), which will have to

take into account the two security forces' operational needs and maintain the close connection

between users and system designers, which is a strength of the ST(SI)².

The technical and scientific police (PTS) also seems to lend itself to achieving budgetary

gains thanks to pooling and synergies, especially as its use has grown considerably over the

last ten years. However, the two forces, which reflect different design philosophies, do not

share the same strategy of convergence. The national police has organised itself to be able to

handle a large volume of PTS requests by streamlining the establishment of its technical

platforms, while the Gendarmerie maintains a platform per department of France, under a

rationale of proximity and availability for the benefit of departmental groups. The creation on 1

January 2021 of a PTS department with national competence at the national police is a useful

experience that should facilitate the creation, in the long term, of a department with national

competence for the whole of the technical and scientific police. However, this overall pooling

will have to plan ahead for the foreseeable increase in activity, while developing cutting-edge

expertise in emerging fields and the two forces' resources of excellence.

In terms of support strictly speaking, at a central level, the purchasing, innovation and

logistics department of the Ministry of the Interior (SAILMI) is responsible for all central

government contracts (except those of the Directorate General for Internal Security), of which

nearly two thirds over the last five years have been concluded for the two forces.

At a local level, the creation in 2014 of the general secretariats for the administration of

the Ministry of the Interior (SGAMI), based on the general secretariats for the administration of

the police (SGAP), aimed to ensure extensive pooling of support resources for the two forces,

including those of the Gendarmerie. In total, around 300 FTE staff from the Gendarmerie were

transferred to the SGAMIs, or nearly 4% of their total workforce in 2019, a level often deemed

insufficient locally and that reflects only a partial achievement of the SGAMIs' initial ambitions.

Precise specifications, as well as operational impact studies and not just budgetary

impact studies, which have so far been lacking, appear essential before any new decision is

made on pooling between the two forces or expanding existing systems.

The field of training is one in which pooling could also be developed, in order to enhance

the two forces' mutual knowledge and operational synergy. Although the Gendarmerie's

military nature remains a major obstacle to establishing common initial training, the context is

nevertheless favourable to joint continuous training, particularly in the area of law enforcement.

An attachment that benefited staff but reduced the Gendarmerie's budgetary

margins

The policy defined during the preparation for attaching the Gendarmerie to the Ministry

of the Interior in 2007, and continued since then, consisted of aiming to achieve "global parity"

in treatment between the staff of the two internal security forces.

Indeed, strict parity between the police and the Gendarmerie could not be achieved due

to the difference in the status and structure of the forces (two in the Gendarmerie and three in

the police), as well as the conditions of employment of the two forces. Failing that, global parity

was sought. Outside the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Armed Forces, the National

Gendarmerie's salary scales are now modified according to changes in those of the police.

However, because of their military status, the salary scales of gendarmes are always aligned

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with those of the armies. The Gendarmerie has therefore become, in a way, the "driving force"

of the Ministry of the Armed Forces in terms of statutory progress. In addition, advances in the

area of compensation obtained by the police unions are also applied to gendarmes.

Gendarmes also continue to benefit from the specific provisions linked to their military

status, such as accommodation out of absolute necessity of service, even though this status

is due more to their organisation and their method of functioning than their actual military

activity. As a major point of the 2009 law, the preservation of military identity is also applicable

in other areas: initial training, the pension scheme, structures and procedures of consultation,

etc.

On a budgetary level, the 152 "National Gendarmerie" programme is structurally marked

by increasing rigidity, due to the very high proportion of the wage bill, which accounted for 86%

in 2020 (versus 81.3% in 2009). After a decline in staff numbers until 2014, the Gendarmerie

benefited from several successive reinforcement plans, which gradually increased by more

than 4,700 worked FTEs between 2015 and 2022. This situation partly explains the 22.1%

increase in the wage bill between 2009 and 2019; however, the compensation and statutory

measures implemented under the global parity principle primarily explain this increase.

As with the national police, this increase in salary costs compromises the Gendarmerie's

necessary effort to equip and invest. The successive reinforcement plans have contributed to

increasing operating and investment expenditure, although without making up for the

accumulated delays. However, the continuation of a significant budgetary effort over the next

few years is necessary in order to maintain the Gendarmerie's operational capacity. In real

estate, due to a lack of sufficient investment over many years, the Gendarmerie is faced with

significant restoration needs, which have been put at €300 m per year, whereas the loans used

over the 2009 to 2019 period totalled

less than €90 m on average per year. In 2021, real estate

investment should amount to €140 m in cash

-limit a

ppropriations (including €93 m registered

in the 152 programme and €47 m under the stimulus plan), versus €118 m in the initial finance

act for 2020. However, these amounts remain lower than the needs identified by the

Gendarmerie to renovate its real estate stock. Meanwhile, the expected contribution from the

call for projects of the September 2020 recovery plan is uncertain, since the selection of

projects has not yet taken place. Moreover, this financial effort will be one-off and will not settle

the liabilities accumulated over many years, which only realistic and sustainable multi-year

financial planning could address.

The recovery plan comes against a backdrop of steadily increasing expenditure on

wages, which are expected to continue rising until 2022, at the risk of supplanting investment

and operating expenditure. The Court, which has already drawn attention to the security forces'

situation in this regard, considers it necessary to curb the inflation of recruitments and

compensation measures in order to create leeway for investment and operating expenditure.

The preservation of the Gendarmerie's military identity, laid down as a principle as part

of its attachment to the Ministry of the Interior, by nature limits the operational and functional

synergies that can be envisaged between the two forces. Indeed, this military identity

permeates the organisational and operating modes of the structures, as well as the career

development of the gendarmes themselves, beginning right from their initial training.

In addition, although the reform has had many positive effects, as this report shows, the

particularities of each of the two forces have not been erased by the Gendarmerie's attachment

to the Ministry of the Interior. Indeed, this took place within the framework set by the law of 3

August 2009, which aimed precisely to maintain the overarching balances of the dual

organisation of public security while aiming to streamline it.

The steps taken within the framework of the guidelines of the White Paper on internal

security of October 2020 could help to strengthen the anchoring achieved since 2009. Beyond