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This is NOT the Police but the Gendarmerie, one of the four military bodies along with the navy, the army and the air force. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gendarmerie

They are soldiers, not civil servants. Unlike french public administrations, when the army has an execution plan, it get things done!

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Getting things done ? You must have missed the Louvois scandale. You know, thousands of soldiers no being paid for almost a year and stuff...

Didn't they just move from Defense to Interior?

For budgetary/employment yes (back in 2009), but status-wise they remain a military force.

So they're really halfway, under both defense and interior.

So they can influence and share that know how with both departments? This could be interesting. I am really surprised that they managed to do it and it will be an easier sell now with the MS/NSA collaboration thing. So maybe we could expect other big deployments of that kind.

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