Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité
| Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (French) | |
|---|---|
CRS patch
|
|
| Active | 1944–present |
| Country |
 France
|
| Branch | French National Police |
| Role |
Law Enforcement Riot control |
| Size | c. 13.000 |
| Nickname(s) | CRS |
| Motto(s) | Servir (To serve) |
The Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité or CRS (English: Republican Security Companies) are the general reserve of the French National Police. They are primarily involved in general security missions but the task for which they are best known is crowd and riot control.
There are 60 "general service" CRS companies, specialized in public order and crowd control, 9 "motorway" companies (French: Compagnies autoroutières) specialized in highway patrol in urban areas and 6 "zonal" motorcycle units (one per Defense zone.) Two additional companies and several mountain detachments administratively attached to local companies specialize in Mountain Rescue. One company (CRS n°1) specializes in VIP escort. The National Police band is also a CRS unit.
Some of the CRS officers from the "general service" compagnies are cross trained and serve as lifeguards on the beaches during the summer vacations.
The expression "les CRS" refers to the whole force. While "une CRS" means a company (the noun compagnie is feminine) "un CRS" means "a CRS man".
The CRS were created on 8 December 1944, after the Groupes mobiles de réserve (GMR) (created by the Vichy régime) were dissolved. The CRS are a civilian corps (unlike the gendarmes, who are military), trained in anti-insurrection and antiriot techniques. The CRS saw their first serious action during the 1947 strikes in France.
Communist sympathisers were highly present in the ranks of some of the early companies (due to their history of engagement in the French Resistance, and according to some - due to a desire to practice entryism).
The French Communist Party (PCF) took on the role of opposition to postwar governments. On 12 November 1947, there was a demonstration in Marseilles called by the communist union CGT and the French Communist Party; some of the local CRS (a majority of whom were communists at the time), refused to act against it and several companies were dissolved as a consequence while a few more were reorganized in 1948 to remove communist influence from their ranks.
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Wikipedia