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France's national police force is responsible for public safety in URBAN areas. Its main missions are to protect the general public, investigate crimes and detain suspects. There are 146,000 men and women in the force. Five thousand more will be recruited by 2017.
France also has 97,000 GENDARMES. They are soldiers in charge of rural and suburban areas doing much the same work as the police. The French gendarmerie has elite response units, which also operate in specified geographical areas outside cities. The R-A-I-D POLICE unit intervened in the attack on the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris on the 9th of January 2015. Another POLICE unit - the B-R-I -, under the control of the Paris Prefecture, went into action during the assault on the Bataclan concert hall on the 13th of November. Gendarmes in the G-I-G-N unit are mainly deployed in the event of hijackings or hostage-seizures. The Group may - exceptionally - work in urban areas, as during the January 2015 attacks.
Operation Sentinel soldiers, meanwhile, police sensitive sites such as schools, public buildings and monuments. An additional three thousand were deployed following the 13th of November attacks meaning there are currently 10,000 in all - 6,500 in Paris and 3,500 in the rest of France.
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