Talk:Gendarmerie

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Countries missing on the Map

Some countries that us to have gendarmeries in the past are missing. Like Iran for example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.136.212.12 (talk) 20:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

B-class checklist

The B-class checklist has been added. The implication is that I think that the article could be made B-class if references are supplied. PKKloeppel (talk) 13:54, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gendarmerie in India?

None of the paramilitary forces listed for India are "a military body charged with police duties among civilian populations." (That's the wikipedia definition) CISF is involved in providing security for government installations such as government-run factories, airports, etc; CRPF is mainly used as riot police. None of these have general policing duties, nor do they conduct investigations, they do not have jurisdictin over civilian population at all! To sum up, India should be removed from this list, and from the map too.. any thoughts? Kmanoj 16:32, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the ones listed for India - they are part of the paramilitary forces, they cannot legally intervene in civilian matters, they supplement the army rather than the police, can be deployed only on special activites like anti-insurgency or anti-terrorism operations at the request of the state governments.. Kmanoj (talk) 14:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is wrong. CRPF, Rapid Action Force and Indian Home Guard act as auxiliaries to the Indian Police Service, and not to the Indian Armed Forces. The Indian Constitution also grants the Indian Home Ministry special powers to deploy these paramilitary units under serious circumstances without obtaining approval from state governments. For example, during General Elections, the CRPF does not require state's permission to act. Please do proper research before making edits. Also, the Railway Protection Force too can act across states without permission from their respective governments. --Incidious (talk) 20:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised that your edits, made in April 2008, have gone unnoticed. --Incidious (talk) 20:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Map

The map is incorrect: Turkey is NOT part of Europe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.132.12.191 (talk • contribs)

Feel free to update it. It's a bit outdated anyway. Mentatus 07:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is definitely outdated, e.g. Chile is mentioned in the list below the map as having a gendarmerie but it is not marked on the map. --Rcgy (talk) 13:33, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pronounciation

How do you pronounce it? My computer is not displaying the IPA text correctly. Is it JEN- or GEN-? And which syllable has the emphasis? GENdarmerie? GenDARmerie? 205.174.22.28 23:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

there is no syllabic emphasis in French.

In French, emphasis falls on the first syllable of any word, therefore is GEN-darmerie, which is acceptable but technically wrong in English. When pronounced in English, the emphasis should move to the second syllable, therefore becomes gen-DARM-erie. Mesoso2 16:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

USA Gendarmerie?

One could make a valid argument that the United States of America has at least two forces that might qualify as gendarmeries. The more famous such force is the United States Marshals Service. The other type of force would be the Special Weapons and Tactical forces that many major metropolitan police departments maintain.

--Temlakos 13:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't classify either of those as gendarmeries. They are not military or military-style forces, which is the qualification for being a gendarmerie. Most gedarmeries are actually part of the army. Some, like the RCMP, are not, but the RCMP was still essentially a military police force on its formation, even if it's not any more. Most police forces in the world have heavy tactical units - it doesn't make them all soldiers or even military-style. And I'm not sure why you would classify the USMS as a gendarmerie. I can see no resemblance. -- Necrothesp 17:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

State Police - the various state police forces in the United States could be gendarmeries due to their paramilitary training, organization and operations.--71.242.127.31 15:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Gendarmerie" seems to have a strong cultural component, for example, as part of the Napoleonic/French tradition. NO state police force in the U.S. has followed this tradition or has referred to themselves this way (an exception might be in Louisiana). Secondly, state police are not a national military organization, and do not take orders from any national military leader. Perhaps a state governor can temporarily arrange this in time of emergency, but I think some official link is necessary to be considered gendarmerie. Finally, there are all sorts of federal law enforcement agencies that, in French, might be called "gendarmerie," but as a borrowed term in English, it is arguably reserved for self-described units. I see that as a huge weakness in the international list, as it includes units that would be translated as gendarmerie in French, but would not be described as such in English publications. Any inclusions (or at least future inclusions) should be cited from an English publication. Cuvtixo (talk) 15:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What about the US National guard? They are definately a military organisation that are often called on to perform policing duties, could they be considered a gendarmerie?

I think the question is even broader than the situation in the USA: some countries have 'demilitarised' their gendarmerie (RCMP) or reduced it to a purely ceremonial role (UK - Her Majesty's Bodyguard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms), while still others have abolished them completely. Perhaps this due to the fact that in certain countries the military can only legally intervene in civilian matters in eg. declared state of emergency - a discussion of these differing legal situations would be an interesting addition to the article.Pacificbiblio (talk) 19:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Military body

"gendarmerie (French) is a military body"

In the case of RCMP, shouldn't we say "paramilitary" or "with military origins"? Apokrif 16:28, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The RCMP is a paramilitary police force, it retains a sort of military status. So paramilitary is cool. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.61.193 (talk) 12:19, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merge with "Military Police"?

Given the fact that gendarmes fall under the umbrella of military police, might it better serve the reader if these two articles were merged?

No. While most gendarmeries are or were military police, they are distinct things. Most military police forces are not gendarmeries, since they do not police civilians. A link from there to here is sufficient. -- Necrothesp 13:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The two articles should certainly not be merged. Linguistically, Gendarmes do fall under the umbrella of military police, but the concept of gendarme is very distinctive and should have its own page. The concept of military police, as User:Necrothesp points out, is not that of policing civilians, which is gendarmes' main task.129.12.200.49 09:00, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, on the basis that the current article is large enough to stand on its own and thus corresponds to Wikipedia policy of merger vs. separation. For a similar example, see Israeli Military Police. -- Y Ynhockey ^(Talk) Y 16:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Grenadier not Gendarmerie

I removed the following line:

A common gendarmerie symbol is a flaming grenade, originally the French gendarmerie symbol.

Due to the fact that the flaming grenade is a cap badge and symbol of Grenadier Regiments, and was both British and French.

[This edit added unsigned by 24.12.204.132 16 April]]

If the..

If the U.S. Coast Guard is a gendarmerie, surely the Norwegian border guards and coast guard would be, too. They're both military bodies with police duties over civilians. --Joffeloff 01:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Colombia?

Part of the Army? don't think so... together but not mixed. They are part of the Colombian Ministry of Defense and the army doesn't have any control over the national police. The Colombian Army has its own military police and its military justice. However due to conditions set by the War on drugs and the Colombian Armed conflict, the police force acts almost as a gendarmerie. --F3rn4nd0 ^{BLA BLA BLA} 23:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rendészeti Biztonsági Szolgálat - a Gendarmerie-type force?

As far as I can understand, the Rendészeti Biztonsági Szolgálat is more similar to the German Bereitschaftspolizei or the French Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité - which in turn are not considered Gendarmerie forces. Mentatus 20:33, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Posse Comitatus Act of 1878

Does anyone think that the Posse Comitatus Act should be mentioned in this article? It may be relevant as it prevents the regular use of anything like a gendarmerie in the US. Kazhivlad 00:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No it doesn't and it never did nor was it intended too, it always allowed for the US Army to be used as a gendarnerie or constabulary in the west due to the lack of any real law enforcement, and it served to stop the military from enforcing laws that the local sheriffs in the Reconstruction south refused to enforce (for whatever reason). --71.242.127.31 14:06, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly so as the Army was used as a constabulary force in the old west--71.185.193.98 02:12, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Poland

The map conflicts the list which cites "Poland: Żandarmeria Wojskowa". --194.204.12.40 16:14, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Marshalcy

Is marshalcy a real word? I think not. Robbie69 14:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

it is[1]--Victor falk 14:26, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

the fact that it has fallen into disuse does not make it less of a word--Victor falk 14:36, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

and anyway, as long as "X" is a dammit forgot the name for that type of noun, "X-cy" is an appropriate derivation--Victor falk 14:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of Gendarmeries

The map show, shows place like Russia, Belarus, Ukraine without "Gendarmeries", i just want to point out that this is totally wrong and that "OMON", "SOBR" so on or whatever they are today called basicly all the paramilitary police forces of these nations interior ministrys are "Gendarmeries" of sort or another, hell the Russian OMON etc even took a significant role in both Chechen wars and are now actually dominating the scene there instead of conventional police forces.

Let me repeat they are / have para military police forces that are capable both real war combat operations and conventional or low intensity conflict policing, like omon that mass up to battalion strength..

Alone theres more than 20 000 OMON troops alone in Russia today http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMON and there is scores of other units / groups in russia that have the similar mission and thousands of members, these are not regular police, nor military and not any kind of "swat" outfits even if some of these large units are capable of operating as such also.

One thing i would like to add that while the actual names of these ukrainian / belarus / russian units may or may not be "Gendarmerie" they are in fact ones and that when they actually talk of these units ie in english and have to specify the "type" or "group" of unit they tend to use the term "Gendarmerie" ie for OMON.

If you can include citation from any published source, I'd be happy about having these countries included. But, in English news, these forces are usually described as military police forces, or paramilitary, etc. If they, themselves, or international agencies, etc, didn't use the term, (in International English, not French) there would be no reason to include them. Personally, I'd like to remove the list altogether. It causes problems without clarifying the meaning or use of the term. Cuvtixo (talk) 16:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

US State Police

Added US State police as they are arguably gendarmerie type forces.

It seems to me that Gendarmerie seems to have a strong cultural component, for example, as part of the Napoleonic/French tradition. NO state police force in the U.S. has followed this tradition or has referred to themselves this way (an exception might be in Louisiana). Secondly, state police are not a national military organization, and do not take orders from any national military leader. Perhaps a state governor can temporarily arrange this in time of emergency, but I think some official link is necessary to be considered gendarmerie. Finally, there are all sorts of [federal law enforcement agencies] that, in French, might be called "gendarmerie," but as a borrowed term in English, it is arguably reserved for self-described units. I see that as a huge weakness in the international list, as it includes units that might be translated as gendarmerie in French, but very probably would not be described as such in English publications. Any inclusions (or at least future inclusions) should be cited from an English publication. I am removing " US State Police" until such a citation can be found. Cuvtixo (talk) 15:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Imperial Iranian Gendarmerie

I propose including material on the Iranian Gendarmerie. Agha Nader 23:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I second that. The Iranian Gendarmerie should be included in this. C3045051 06:24, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gendarmerie Reputations?

There are so many different Gendarmeries in the world, that the general statement that they have a better reputation than civilian police should be qualified. I am sure that in various countries their reputation is worse given their use in 'crowd control'

"There may also be different reputations, with the gendarmeries generally having a better reputation than civilian police."

Pacificbiblio (talk) 19:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Costa Rica also seems to have a gendarmerie

See:

Civil_Guard_(Spain)#Peacekeepers

Military_of_Costa_Rica#Ministry_of_Public_Security.27s_Public_Force

--201.52.142.243 (talk) 20:13, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

added ninety:one 20:33, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

St. Martin has a gendarmerie

When I was in St. Martin, there were Gendarmerie walking around in uniform and driving marked police vehicles. As St. Martin is part of the French Antilles, is that covered under France? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.184.167.3 (talk) 21:06, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it's the Gendarmerie Nationale of France, same body.

Tunisia has a Gendarmerie

Tunisia has a para military force called the National Gard (Garde National) it have station in all city and even rural small village, it operate like police force but within non metropolitan areas. Add it on the map and on the article

[[2]]

chile should be included in the map as the article clearly states it has one gendarmerie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.140.22.68 (talk) 17:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Confusing French and English term: Gendarmerie

It seems to me that the term Gendarmerie seems to have a strong cultural component, for example, as part of the Napoleonic/French tradition. I think any inclusions of future gendarmeries, if not self-described as such, should be cited from English publications. I realize that many law enforcement agencies around the world could qualify in the technical sense of the word, but frankly it is not a commonly used word in English, and simply transliterating from French does a disservice to both languages. Cuvtixo (talk) 15:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Europe centric article

Seems this article was mostly written by Europeans and Latin Americans. Added more information regarding military police in India to have a better geographical representation. --Incidious (talk) 20:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hungary should be on the article's map

In the illustration Hungary should be coloured, because it had gendarmerie before 1945. It was called "Csendőrség" and its two-member patrols roamed the countryside, villages and smallers cities, with bayonet bolt action rifles. They were nicknamed "kakastollas" (cock feathered) because they wore crane feathers on their pointed uniform hats. The larger hungarian cities and the capital Budapest had pistol-equipped traditional police forces and generally more liberties.

The hungarian gendarmerie "Csendőrség" was entirely dissolved after 1945 due to its "generally oppressive nature" as seen by the communist occupiers and its alleged cooperation with nazi occupation in the massive deportation of gipsy and jewish people. Since 1946 there is only police service in Hungary, its called "Rendőrség". 91.82.243.75 (talk) 13:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reorganisation of map with new color.

As there are debates whether certain countries have got gendarmerie forces or not what I suggest is to create another color on the map that means "debatable/uncertain". What do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.61.193 (talk) 13:12, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]