Garde champêtre

A garde champêtre (lit. 'rural guard') is the combination of a forest ranger, game warden and code enforcement officer in certain rural communes in France.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (October 2013) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

View a machine-translated version of the French article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,224 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Garde champêtre en France]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Garde champêtre en France}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2016)

Organization

Their job is to report to the local mayor. Many of these officers carry firearms (they commonly face poachers, many of whom are themselves armed) and other weapons. Mayors decide which weapons to provide them with, but gardes champêtres can purchase, retain and carry a much wider range of weapons than the urban police (police municipale) are allowed. They are not under the supervision of the Gendarmerie but under the mayor's, their employer.

Remove ads

History and future development

From 1791 to 1958 it was compulsory for each rural commune to employ a garde champêtre. Since then many formerly rural communes are heavily or totally urbanised and the number in post has been shrinking every year. A draft law in 2014,^[1] provided for the integration of the remaining gardes champêtres with the police municipale and the highway control officers (agents de surveillance de la voie publique) into a new police territoriale.

Remove ads

Uniforms and rank insignia

Their uniforms are not regulated and are at the mayor's discretion; they are traditionally green. The only compulsory element of their dress is a metal badge or cloth patch bearing the words: "LA LOI" (the law), the name of the commune and that of the garde champêtre.^[2] They cannot legally wear the dress attributed to the police municipale (navy blue with a light blue trimming).

Police ranks of French Rural Police^[3]
Insignia (2017–Present)^[4]
Rank (2017–Present)	Garde champêtre chef principal	Garde champêtre chef
English	Senior Chief Rural Warden	Chief Rural Warden
Insignia (2012–2017)
Rank (2012–2017)	Garde champêtre chef principal	Garde champêtre chef	Garde champêtre principal titulaire	Garde champêtre principal stagiaire
English	Senior Chief Rural Warden	Chief Rural Warden	Rural Warden	Trainee Rural Warden
Insignia (–2012)
Rank (–2012)	Garde champêtre chef principal	Garde champêtre chef	Garde champêtre principal	Garde champêtre stagiaire
English	Senior Chief Rural Warden	Chief Rural Warden	Rural Warden	Trainee Rural Warden

Organization

History and future development

Uniforms and rank insignia

See also

References

External links

Wikiwand - on