Times have changed since the first women joined France’s police force in the mid-1970s. Back then, it was a male-dominated profession in which a small number of women served mainly in departments where the potential for use of force was not considered an issue. Today, 29.4 percent of the force is made up of women, who enjoy broad access to the profession’s various ranks and career paths.

An Ambitious Set of Measures and Structural Changes

For many years, the prevailing model for policing in France stressed tasks that were seen as “manly,” requiring the use of force in the fight against crime, as opposed to prevention or administrative assistance, which were stigmatized and branded as “social work.” However, this reality has shifted, and women now have access to a wide range of law enforcement careers as well as every position in the chain of command.

The French National Police is part of the French civil service. The civil service is organized into several categories that can be accessed directly after graduation through an exam process, but they require a university degree. Police officers are hired on the same basis as other civil service opportunities. Depending on their academic level, candidates can take various police-specific entrance exams:

• • Executive branch (category A+): requires a master’s degree
  • Commanding officer branch (category A): requires a bachelor’s degree
  • Field officer branch (category B): requires a high school diploma
  • Auxiliary officer branch (category C): no diploma required

Women became eligible to take the various police entrance exams in the 1970s, with the opening up of the (now discontinued) “enquêteur” and executive branch exams in 1972 and the commanding officer and field officer branch exams in 1978. At that time, women were subject to a quota system, but those quotas were abolished in 1992.