Rights and Limitations
The powers of French Police and Gendarmerie forces are constrained by statute law and jurisprudence. The rules of procedure depend on the stage of enquiry:
- Crimes committed in flagrante delicto, in which a suspect was found committing the crime, or pursued by witnesses, or found in possession of objects from the crime or other probable cause.
- Preliminary enquiries — it is unclear whether a crime, or which crime, has been committed, but there exist good reasons to believe this might be the case.
- Judicial information — an investigative magistrate (a judge, external to the police) supervises an enquiry on a case where it is certain, or at least very probable, that a crime has been committed.
In particular, outside of crimes in flagrante delicto, law enforcement forces may not conduct searches or arrests without a specific commission from the investigative magistrate.
Not all law-enforcement officers are capable of making full arrests or conducting searches; these powers are, by law, restricted to those have special legal qualifications (see next section).
Read more about this topic: Law Enforcement In France
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