The two main types of police - the Police Nationale and the Gendarmerie Nationale - are for all practical purposes indistinguishable. The CRS (Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité), on the other hand, are an entirely different proposition. They are a mobile force of paramilitary heavies, used to guard sensitive embassies, "control" demonstrations and generally intimidate the populace on those occasions when the public authorities judge that it is stepping out of line. Armed with guns, CS gas and truncheons, they have earned themselves a reputation for brutality over the years, particularly at those moments when the tensions inherent in the long civil war of French politics have reached boiling point. Not quite in the same league, but with an ugly recent history, is the separate Paris police force . This bunch are prone to pulling up "nonconformists" - often just ordinary teenagers and black people - for identity checks. You can be stopped anywhere in France and asked to produce ID. If it happens to you, it's not worth being difficult or facetious. The police can also be rather sensitive on political issues: a few years ago a group of Danish students wearing "Chirac Non!" T-shirts against the French nuclear tests in the Pacific were surrounded on their arrival in France, accompanied in force to their hotel and made to change.

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Lastly, in the Alps or Pyrenees, you may come across specialized mountaineering sections of the police force. They are unfailingly helpful, friendly and approachable, providing rescue services and guidance.

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