French Code of Criminal Procedure
In forceSubject to the provisions of article 20-1, the following are judicial police officers:
1° Members of the national gendarmerie, other than volunteers, who do not have the status of judicial police officers;
2° Civil servants in the active services of the national police, permanent and probationary, who do not have the status of judicial police officers;
3° (Repealed);
4° (Repealed);
5° (Repealed).
However, the civil servants and military personnel mentioned in 1° and 2° may only effectively exercise the attributions attached to their status as judicial police officers and avail themselves of this status if they are assigned to a post involving such exercise; the exercise of these attributions is temporarily suspended during the time they are participating, as a formed unit, in an operation to maintain law and order.
The duties of judicial police officers are:
To assist judicial police officers in the performance of their duties;
To record crimes, misdemeanours or contraventions and to draw up a report of them;
To receive statements made to them by any person likely to provide them with clues, evidence and information on the perpetrators and accomplices of these offences.
Judicial police officers do not have the authority to decide on measures of police custody.
