# French police

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-police/631503>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [August 14, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-police/631503 "2012-08-14T22:43:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Vladwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f1d935/32.png) [@Vladwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vladwriter)\
**Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-police/631503/1 "2012-08-14T22:43:23Z")

</div>

Gens d’arme is more correctly translated as ‘men at arms’, a term which was used in English. A squire was an apprentice knight, not merely a man at arms.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\
**Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-police/631503/2 "2012-08-14T22:55:16Z")

</div>

The OP is responding to the last paragraph of [Why are the police called cops, pigs, or the fuzz?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2209/why-are-the-police-called-cops-pigs-or-the-fuzz), a staff report dated May 31, 2005:

[QUOTE=Dex]  
By the way, the French call their police gendarmes, which came from gens d’arme (people with weaponry) which ranked just below knight in medieval armies–the English equivalent would be “esquire,” perhaps. No, somehow I don’t think calling the police “squires” will catch on here.  
[/QUOTE]

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-police/631503/3 "2012-08-15T03:36:42Z")

</div>

> [@Vladwriter](#):
>
> Gens d’arme is more correctly translated as ‘men at arms’, a term which was used in English. A squire was an apprentice knight, not merely a man at arms.

After archers, musketeers, and pikemen had spoiled the primacy of mounted knights, “man at arms” could simply mean “knight, but mounted infantry rather than cavalry”.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-police/631503/4 "2012-08-15T09:01:12Z")

</div>

The _gendarmes_ don’t belong to the police (even if it’s a police force). They belong to the army.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-police/631503/5 "2012-08-15T15:22:45Z")

</div>

> [@Floater](#):
>
> The _gendarmes_ don’t belong to the police (even if it’s a police force). They belong to the army.

The French _Gendarmerie nationale_ are still administratively part of the army (and provide the army’s Military Police) but, since 2009, report operationally to the Minister of the Interior, like the _Police Nationale_.

Canada’s national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police become _le Gendarmerie royale du Canada_ in French, in reference to the historical origin of gendarmes as mounted police units.