It is similar in nature to their French counterparts as well as the State Police in the U.S.[2] It is one of the largest African contributors to peacekeeping missions around the world.

This detachment (which became today's Red Guard) was the cadre around which the "Colonial Gendarmerie" was formed.

On 1 January 1928, by a decree of the Governor-General of French West Africa, the "Mobile Gendarmerie Group " of Dakar was created.

[3] In October 1965, a decree organized the General Inspectorate of the Gendarmerie and the Senegalese Republican Guard, while it was confirmed as a service branch in 1968.

[5] In the first decade of independence, the 1,600-member National Gendarmerie, which was controlled by the president through the minister of state for the armed forces, maintained "legions" in the country's seven regions, divided into smaller brigades.