Gendarmerie Maritime

The maritime arm of France’s Gendarmerie Nationale, a military police force performing coast-guard and constabulary duties: law enforcement, fisheries and pollution control, port and approach surveillance, and judicial policing at sea. Created in its modern form in 1973, it operates patrol vessels and small craft under the operational authority of the French Navy (Marine Nationale) while remaining part of the Gendarmerie. It is a gendarmerie-type force, a military body with civil-policing jurisdiction, comparable in function to a coast guard.