Tell me about "gendarmes"

Factual Questions
1

In one of George Orwell’s essays, he noted the absence from English society of “gendarmes” – best as I can recall he described them as “those police living in barracks with machine guns, and sometimes with tanks and bomber planes, who are the guardians of society from Seoul to Lisbon.” I always thought a gendarme was just a French police officer, but apparently not. According to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gendarmerie:

But the word seems to have wider connotations. I once read in a history of the Russian Revolution (Comrades, by Brian Moynahan), one contemporary said the Bolsheviks’ readiness to censor opposing points of view proved the maxim, “Scratch a revolutionary and find a gendarme.” Implying that gendarme was, at that time, used as a general term for political police or secret police, the kind whose main duty was suppression of political dissent. Which presents a very different mental picture than that of a French police officer in cape and pillbox hat.

Can anyone tell me more about the history of gendarmes, and about how the word has been used/applied?

2

The etymology of gendarme is pretty clear: it’s from gent d’armes - armed man.

3

Gendarme forces in a lot of the countries that had/have them, were and still are, among their other duties, used for crowd control and riot police. So it would be them who would break up demonstrations or protests and arrest the people involved. You can see how this might get them some ill will.

4

Of course this varies from country to country. As has been said, the term comes from “gens d’armes,” people with arms. It generally describes a sort of paramilitary security force, mostly living in barracks and with heavier weaponry than the ordinary police.

Organisatorically, those forces differ across countries as well. Sometimes they belong to the ministry of defense, sometimes to the interior ressort.

In France, the gendarmerie serves as police in rural, whereas “police” is for urban areas (in Paris, you won’t find “gendarmes,” you’ll find “agents de police.”)

Italy has a similar sort of paramilitary police, called Carabinieri.

In Germany, most Länder (states) have a body called Bereitschaftspolizei (“standby police”). They live in barracks, are drawn on in cases where you need a lot of troops quickly for more difficult jobs than the ordinary everyday police work, such as riots; they are subordinate to the ministry of interior of the Land.

5

At one time, some US police forces could have been described as gendarmerie. The Texas Rangers and the Pennsylvania State Police, for example, both followed the living in barracks/more heavily armed model. They were also responsible for enforcing the law in rural areas that lacked their own law enforcement. The PA State Police still are, for that matter. You could make a case that the PA State Police also share the less savory aspects of gendarmeries. They were formed in the early 1900’s to break strikes and suppress unionization among miners and steel workers- hence, their old-timey nickname as the “Coal and Iron Cops.”

6

Several people that lived in Spain during the Franco era have told me that you didn’t want to mess with the Guardia Civil.

7

Not just during the Franco years…

Several years ago (post-Franco, however), I arrived in San Sebastian (aka Donostia among Basques) one crisp winter morning. I was in the main Bus Station, having arrived in Spain on an overnight train from France, then taken a local train from Irun to San Sebastian, and had just purchased a bus ticket on to Bilbao, where I would be meeting friends from the UK with whom I would drive across Northern Spain to a wedding in Asturias.

All of a sudden, I heard a loud shout from one end of the bus station. I looked around, and noticed an Armored Personnel Carrier, from which emerged a bunch of men wearing military fatigues and armed to the hilt. Everyone in the bus station hit the floor, spread-eagle, and I decided that I wasn’t going to be the only one standing, and did likewise.

The Guardia walked trough the bus station with sub-machine-guns drawn, and one of them noticed the English-language book that I had been reading (and had dropped next to me). I was also wearing a backpack, and undoubtedly had other distinguishing marks that led him to understand that I was a tourist. He asked me to produce a passport, which I did (I’m a UK citizen). The Guardia led me – machine-pistol still evident – to a room in the bus terminal, where his commanding officer interrogated me, and took a photograph. Fortunately, I had tickets showing that I had taken a certain train in from France, and had therefore been in San Sebastian less than 30 minutes. They escorted me to the bus that I had been waiting for, and told the bus driver to take me to Bilbao, and to leave immediately, with me as the sole passenger. Before we left, I did hear them calling in various languages if anyone had a passport other than Spanish or French.

Once we were en route, I asked the bus driver what the hell that had all been about, and he pretended not to understand my questions.

After I got to Bilbao, I heard on the radio that the car of the Chief of Police in San Sebastian had been hot-wired with a bomb that morning, and that ETA was suspected.

8

I wonder if I can buy one of those hats somewhere.

9

The Israeli Border Guards (Mishmar Hagvul) serve basically the same purpose. Most of its members are actually recruits, much like the regular military.

10

The Italian Finance Ministry have their own police force- called the *Guardia di Finanza *I have heard that when you emerge from a restaurant or shop they can stop you and ask to see any receipts you have from that establishment. This is to do with possible tax avoidance by the shop/restaurant. Here is their web-site for anyone who can read Italian. Guardia di Finanza

11

It is so they can check whether the restaurant gave you a receipt - modern automatic cash registers would register the amount and other details of your bill when printing your receipt, and the tax agencies collect the data from those cahs registers to countercheck against tax evasion. So there’s a certain incentive not to give guests a receipt (with their consent) so the purchase or bill doesn’t get registered. That’s why you have to provide a receipt upon request; if you can’t, you can get fined, so you have an incentive to actually demand a receipt.

Italian skier Alberto Tomba is reported to have said that he doesn’t have respect for the Italien police, but he would never risk meddling with the Guardia di Finanza.

12

Briefly, about the french “gendarmerie” :

-They were originally ordinary soldiers who were used temporarily as a police force in the provinces where they wee garrisonned, and eventually it became a permanent duty. That’s why they belong to the army rather than to the police.

-They have military ranks and structure. A gendarmerie captain is way higher in the food chain than a police captain.

-They act as police in rural areas and small towns. In large towns, there are ordinary police officers. They’re also the road police.

-Being militaries, they have a number of duties police oficer don’t have. For instance they live with their family in buildings near the gendarmerie stations, they can be required to work at any time, etc… (and they’re complaining unofficially a lot because “abuse” of this possibility is very commonplace) On the other hand they’ve also rights that police officer don’t have, for instance rules about using their weapons are less stringents.
-They’ve special units for specialized police duties. For instance there’s a mountain gendarmerie for rescue operations, a marine gendarmerie, an anti-terrorist elite gendarmerie unit used for instance for serious operations (for intance a plane hijacked, while the corresponding police units will handle less serious situations, like hostage taking in a bank, etc…). There are anti-riot units too, but the regular police also has those (the gendarmerie units have the reputation to be nastier, though).
-They kept som military duties. Like, say, in case of war protecting sensible sites. For this specialized units are equipped with light armament like light armored vehicles. They also protect official buildings, so actually you can see them in Paris (actually police doesn’t wear kepis anymore in France, so now any “police” officer you’ll see with a kepi is actually a gendarme). The french “republican guard” (ceremonial unit wearing fancy 19th century uniforms and riding horses) are gendarmes too. They also guard embassies on foreign soil, are in charge of training/ replace the local police during peacekeeping operations, etc…
-They’re also the military police, so they (once again specialized units) are present wherever the army is.
That said, the “gendarmes” you’re likely to meet are the ordinary rural and/or road police, and never had any involvment in the various other duties I mentionned previously. But being a crossbreed between military and police officers, thegendarmerie as a body was given over the years and even centuries a number of tasks police wouldn’t be very fit to take care of. The military training of the ordinary “gendarme” is very limited, though, since he’s unlikely to do anything else than regular police work during his career, so they aren’t an actual fighting force.
I understand that the spanish “guardia civil” and the italian “carabinieri” are quite similar to the french “gendarmes”.