[5] During the Belle Époque, under the Third Republic, the French government was under increasing political pressure to do something about the rising level of insecurity, due to the rise of organized, marauding bands of brigands operating in various regions almost with impunity in the face of dispersed and poorly trained municipal police, and insufficient numbers of national police.
This came to a head in the first decade of the 20th century, when organized criminal gangs pillaged, murdered, and tortured victims in several departments of France.
[6] In response, Clemenceau issued a decree dated 4 March 1907 which created a structure under the command of Commissioner Jules Sébille [fr], who was the first head of the French judicial police.
Clemenceau wanted them to become a kind of rapid deployment force, in order to combat the increasing sophistication of gangs who took advantage of improvement in communications for better means of escape, which the scattered and disconnected municipal police authorities were unable to keep up with.
This period also marked the involvement of the mobile brigade in the resolution of sensational cases such as the swindler Clément Passal [fr] in 1929, the Stavisky affair in 1933, or of the serial killer Eugen Weidmann in 1937.