[2] The Gendarmerie is the heir of the Maréchaussée, the oldest police force in France, dating back to the Middle Ages.

In 1720, the Maréchaussée was officially attached to the Household of the King (Maison du Roi), together with the gendarmerie of the time, which was not a police force at all, but a royal guard.

While its existence ensured the relative safety of French rural districts and roads, visitors from England, which had nothing but the not very effective parish constables, saw the Maréchaussée, with its armed and uniformed patrols, as royal soldiers with an oppressive role and so a symbol of foreign tyranny.

Their limited numbers and scattered deployment rendered the Maréchaussée ineffective in controlling the "Great Fear" of July through August, 1789.

Although the Maréchaussée had been the main police force of the ancien regime, the gendarmerie was initially a full-time auxiliary to the National Guard militia.

Subsequently, special gendarmerie units were created within the Imperial Guard for combat duties in French occupied Spain.

The majority of gendarmes continued in what was now the established role of the corps—serving in small, sedentary detachments as armed rural police.

Under the Third Republic the ratio of foot to mounted gendarmes increased and the numbers directly incorporated in the French Army with a military police role reduced.

The gendarmes are also occasionally called pandores, which is a slang term derived from an 18th-century Hungarian word for "frontier guards."

[10] The equivalent Dutch force, Royal Marechaussee, uses officially the old French term—which King William I, when assuming power after the fall of Napoleon, considered preferable to "gendarmerie".

There are two kind of brigades: In addition, it has specialised units: In addition, the Gendarmerie runs a national criminal police institute (Institut de recherche criminelle de la gendarmerie nationale) specializing in supporting local units for difficult investigations.

It comprises 18 Groupements de Gendarmerie mobile (Groupings) featuring 109 squadrons[note 3] for a total of approx.

[14] Its main responsibilities are: Nearly 20% of the Mobile Gendarmerie squadrons are permanently deployed on a rotational basis in the French overseas territories.

The civilian tasks of the mobile gendarmerie are similar to those of the police units known as Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), for which they are often mistaken.

Their missions include:[15] The non-metropolitan branches include units serving in the French overseas départements and territories (such as the Gendarmerie of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon), staff at the disposal of independent States for technical co-operation, Germany, security guards in French embassies and consulates abroad.

[16] It is directly subordinated to the Ministry of Armed Forces and plays a major role in the security chain of the nuclear devices.

The security of the civil nuclear powerplants and research establishments is provided by specialized units of the Departmental Gendarmerie.

More specifically, the gendarmes of this unit are responsible for ensuring the protection and the readiness of the different kinds of missiles used by the French Navy and Air Force.

[19] GIGN (Groupe d'intervention de la Gendarmerie nationale) is one of the two premier counter-terror formations in France.

Its missions include counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, surveillance of national threats, protection of government officials and targeting of organized crime.

Created initially as a relatively small police tactical unit specialized in sensitive hostage situations, it has since grown into a larger and more diversified force of nearly 400 members.

[21] The unit came into prominence following its successful assault on a hijacked Air France flight at Marseille Marignane airport in December 1994.

Following World War I a relatively simple uniform was adopted for the Gendarmerie, although traditional features such as the multiple-cord aiguillette and the dark blue/light blue colour combination were retained.

The first armoured unit of the National Gendarmerie was formed in 1933, in Satory, the special grouping of Mobile Republican guard.

[28] In 2023, the multipurpose gendarmerie intervention vehicle, nicknamed Centaur, is the new main combat system of the Versailles Armoured Grouping.

[29][30] Armoured units and their equipment were used in overseas operations such as the Opération Licorne,[31] the European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia[32] and Afghanistan.

As of 2014[update], Gendarmerie air forces (FAG) operate a fleet of 56 machines belonging to three types and specialized in two basic missions: surveillance/intervention and rescue/intervention.