French Customs

The French customs is tax authorities and depends from now on Ministère on the Budget, Public accounts and Public office, as well as DGI or DGCP. It forms today the head office of the customs and rights indirect (DGDDI).

The Douane is in charge of the levying of the duties and taxes due to the entry of the goods on the national territory, of, fight against the illicit traffics, the control consumer protection of the people at the borders and the control of the indirect taxation (taxation of the oil products, alcohols, the tobacco and the ecological taxation…).

It also intervenes, in collaboration with other services, in fields as varied as the fight against the Contrefaçon S, the protection of the Cultural heritage, the defense of the Environnement and common Agricultural policy controls it.

History

The French Douane is resulting from the General Ferme. Reorganized by Napoleon i which, still First Consul, allots in 1801 for the first time to the customs officers a uniform. It will be of green cloth

Under the empire, the customs officers behave like a true army moving. They indeed follow the Large army to the liking of its projections in Europe, installing new lines of customs unceasingly.

At the time of the installation of the continental Blockade by the treaty of Berlin of November 1806, they fight against the smuggling of the English goods in.liaison.with the soldiers. But the customs officers, who will be called the " 35 000 baïonnettes" , will also prove to be excellent soldiers. The majority of enter them are besides of former servicemen, at whom one reserves to it quasi totality of employment in the customs, that they are French or amenable to the annexed countries.

They will fight with brilliance at the sides of the armies, made up in units of the military type with musics and emblems. Their bravery will be often greeted by the largest French military chiefs and the Emperor himself. It would have even wished that certain customs units be integrated into its famous " old woman garde".

It is especially in the German states, that the customs officers illustrate themselves. They fight at the time of the seat of Hamburg under the orders of the marshal Louis Nicolas Davout, Prince d' Heckmühl, Duc of Auerstadt.

They will form for the first time a regiment, the 2nd regiment of the imperial customs, created by a special order of Davout of August 17th, 1813 and placed under the command of the Director Pyonnier, Directeur of the imperial Customs in Hamburg. This body will include/understand not only units of the infantry type, but also a squadron of cavalry and a company of artillery, and even a naval element.

Customs officers, but also from the soldiers chosen among the best gunners, will form a company of marksman under the orders of the captain of the Lavandeze customs. The men of this unit are charged to be used enormous rifles as rampart and hold the enemy forces remotely bastions. During this seat, the company of the guides, company of elite of the Regiment of the customs, will be chosen by Davout to form its personal guard. To reward the customs officers for this unit of their bravery, the marshal grants the right to them to carry the braid to the colors of the Legion of honor.

It is the Cutsaert captain, who orders the company of the guides and whom the Emperor himself decorated with the imperial order of the Meeting for his control “with the fire”, which will be the first to raise the braid to the colors of the highest French distinction on its green breeches of uniform. This fact will be at the origin of the band garance which decorates since 1852 the pants of uniform of the customs officers.

At the time of the backward flow of the " Large armée" after the first reverses, the customs officers carry out with effectiveness of the rearguard actions or give an opinion in the fortified towns that the enemy besieges.

Continuations with the many desertions among the young conscripts from the classes 1813 and 1814, the famous " Marie-louise" the first name of the Empress second wife of Napoleon, or the national guards, the customs officers are sometimes only and the last to hold certain places. They fighting until the last end never going, as with Thionville, Rodenack or Sierck.

Qualities of combativeness whose proof the customs officers during the wars of the empire made will make become aware with the authorities of all the party which they could draw from the use of the brigades armed with the customs, in the defense system of France. Thus, Louis-Philippe Ier, King of the French by the ordinances of the May 31st, 1831 and September 9th, 1832, decides it the official creation of the military body of the customs, with for basic organic unit the battalion. At the time of the conquest of the Algeria, customs officers take part in the engagements.

The marshal Thomas-Robert Bugeaud, to reward them for their bravery, grants the right to them to carry the grenade to 7 flames, symbol of units of elite to the service of France (Swiss regiments, Foreign legion). This grenade, associated with the horn of the hunters, infantry of elite to which the customs officers are assimilated and who decorates their uniform since the First Empire, will become soon the badge of the customs.

At the time of the war of 1870-1871, the customs officers have to fight. July 23rd, 1870 around 10 hours of the evening with Shreckling in the Moselle, the employee of the customs Pierre Mouty fell under the enemy balls after he had refused to go, making of him the first French victim of the conflict. For memory, it is only on July 28th, 1870 that will fall, during a recognition, the sergeant Pagnier of the 12th Regiment of hunters with horse, with Niederbrönn in Alsace, officially killed first of the army. The customs officers will still fight there with brilliance in various fortified towns, in Strasbourg in particular where they are the only ones to make prisoners, or in Belfort - under the orders of the colonel of the Genious Pierre Philippe Denfert-Rochereau - which will never deposit the weapons and which will remain French.

The customs officers still illustrate themselves in Longwy or in besieged Paris, where they came per thousands to reinforce the garrison.

The period of 1870 to 1914 will be marked by a reinforcement of the use of the customs officers to fine soldiers. They take part regularly in the military operations, one allots to them certain advantages granted the soldiers, tobacco of canteen, care in the military hospitals, admission in the schools of children reared by the army for their sons. However, the authorities will always refuse, in spite of many debates going in this direction in the two rooms (and what would have been altogether normal), to grant to the customs officers the military statute strictly speaking, pretexting that those are civil civils servant and thus holder of the right to vote, contrary to the soldiers who will recover this right only on one decision of the de Gaulle general of 1945. This statute had been indeed more interesting for them, and this in particular as regards retirement.

July 14th, 1880, at the time of the review of Longchamps the president Jules Grévy gives to the body of the customs its first flag, only one flag for the whole of the body as for the hunters, as well as a strong quota of medals of the legion of honor.

At the time of the first world war, the customs officers are still the first to undergo " the test of the feu". It is a customs officer, the employee Georges Laibe of the brigade of Suarce in the territory of Belfort which is first wounded French of the conflict, on August 2nd, 1914 at 4 o'clock in the morning. The same day with Reppe not far from Belfort, lieutenant Georges Parachie and the men of his brigade make the first enemy prisoner, a sergeant of the 22e regiment of dragons bâdois which ventured too much close to the " ligne" and that they succeeded with désarçonner.

At the time of the seat of Longwy from August 21st to 26th 1914, the company of the customs officers of fortress of the Genesseaux captain is quoted with the order of the army for its brilliant led. At the time of the offensive of Champagne in 1915, the customs officers, because of their perfect knowledge of the ground and the population, are preferred with the soldiers to be deposited of night by aircraft in occupied territory by the enemy, to carry out missions of information or sabotage, after having undergone a specific drive. The majority of these missions were crowned success and sabotages contributed to destabilize the enemy force. The information transmitted by carrier pigeon which they take along with them for their mission was invaluable to the large Staff.

Unfortunately, several customs officers " missionnaires" were captured by the enemy as a civilian and the weapons with the hand and were shot like partisans, after a summary judgment. Thus this is the case of the lance-corporal Charles Goulard, 38 years, which unfortunately denounced by a compatriot, is taken by the enemy and shot. Extremely courageous, he dies having refused the stringcourse that one tends to him, by shouting " live France" , after it was allowed to him to embrace last once his wife and her four young children who live in occupied zone.

The customs officers will be also used as troop of the Genius or provostal Gendarmerie. July 14th, 1919, the customs officers at the head ravel flag on the Champs Elysées. January 21st, 1921 in Strasbourg, at the time of one moving ceremony, the Humbert General ordering the place, gives to the flag of the customs battalions the Military Cross 1914-1918 with palm, for the mention in dispatches allotted to the company of the customs officers of fortress of Longwy. This distinction honoured the unit with the body of the customs.

At the time of the second world war the customs officers still have to take part in the defense of the country. At the time of “funny of war” they are used as guides to the soldiers of the “irregular forces” at the time of the knacks carried out against the enemy outposts, along the Ligne Maginot. It is during one of these actions that on January 10th, 1940 the employee Alphonse Marchal is killed, of the 8th Battalion of the customs, perhaps doing this one, there still, the killed first of the conflict.

At the time of the “blitz”, the battalions undergo the fate of the units of the army, but as with accustomed, they fight until the last end, and, as with the seat of Hamburg more than one century before, the bayonet is often used. Let us quote in particular the heroic defense of the fort of higher Larmont in the sector of Pontarlier by the customs officers of the 10th Battalion of Besancon which will deposit the weapons only per hour when the armistice is signed. As for the 9th Battalion of Mulhouse, driven back by the enemy, he prefers to pass to neutral Switzerland (where the customs officers will know an internment of softest) taking along with him some German prisoners, rather than to be made prisoner.

During the Occupation, the customs officers continue to fulfill their functions on the line of demarcation or at the borders of the Pyrenees. They will be unfortunately also appointed with the guard of certain camps of internment. Many were the customs officers to take an active share with Resistance, some will be off-set and never returned from the camps. Customs officers choose to leave France clandestinely and will fight in the rows of the Free French Army. One finds customs officers taking part in the engagements for the release of the country.

In Far East, at the time “of the takeover by Japanese force” in Indo-China of March 9th, 1945, the customs officers form “maquis” which badger the troops with the “Mikado” until the arrival of the task force of the general Leclerc. Let us quote in particular the customs officers of the brigade of Donghene to the Laos, under the orders of the lance-corporal Antoine Paysant, which take actions of “guerilla” which allow, a time at least, to destabilize the adversary. But, denounced, Paysant will be captured and will know the maltreatment inflicted by Kempétaï, the Japanese, equivalent secret police Japanese of Gestapo. Finally released, it is quoted in eulogistic terms and receives the Military Cross 1939-1945.

As for the flotilla of the customs of Indo-China, it carries out from China where its armed buildings succeeded in fleeing of the actions, of type “commando” against the positions enemies until the capitulation of “the empire of the rising sun”.

Created officially the shortly after the wars of the First Empire, the military body of the customs disappeared in the storm from the rout from 1940 and was never reconstituted after war.

Thus ended nearly 150 years of history of the Customs to the service of the weapons of France. The fact that the State wished to reinforce in the years to come recruitment from reserved employment to the former servicemen or under contract, many the latter resulting from the new professional army and having carried out for the majority from many external operations, could give again in the future with the Customs its " letters of noblesse".

Organization

The customs are divided into two branches: service of the business transactions and security services. Each one of these services is its own competent but one and the other works in close cooperation.

Service of the business transactions

This branch is in charge of the checking, the liquidation and the collection of the duties and taxes related with the goods, like making sure of the observation of the obligations envisaged by the Code of the customs as for the operations of import and export of the goods as well as certain operations deprived such as the importation of a vehicle deprived by a private individual.

Certain operations are made only in offices specific known as “offices to particular competence”. They relate to products whose customs mode with the crossing of frontiers is specific (cultural plants, live animals, goods, furs and fur skins, noble metals…).

Security services

One always speaks “about the” security services because they are very varied. Indeed, they gather as well terrestrial units as air or maritime. The various types of brigades in the branch monitoring are the following:

the fixed brigades of control, which are in charge of the control of the travellers and their baggages, of the goods moving and the means of transport, at the airport points of passage, highway and railway of the nonCommunity external borders. They are called Brigades of External Monitoring (BSE).

the brigades of interior monitoring (BSI), distributed on the whole of the national territory and which are in charge of the monitoring of a given zone.

the research brigades, which are charged with the collection of information on the fraud. The research brigades were removed in 2005, except in the regional management of the Corsican Customs.

the units Naval Aviation, made up of specialized agents - marine and aviators - they have the role the monitoring at sea.

brigades of monitoring aéroterrestre, which, as their name indicates it, carries out the monitoring since air means, of a given terrestrial zone.

They include/understand all the customs officers in uniform. It are present as well in third border, (borders with Switzerland, Andorra, Brazil and Surinam, as well as the international airports, international ports and maritime borders which is located at between the littoral and a limit external located at sea at 12 marine miles measured starting from the base lines of the territorial sea) as inside the territory. What is named “flying customs” by the majority of people are in fact the Brigades of interior monitoring (BSI).

These services are equipped with agents general practitioners known as “pedestrians” and with agents having a speciality such as the motorcyclists, the sailors, the aviators or the Masters of dog.

DNRED

The DNRED is the National management of the Information and the Customs Investigations. It is the service of intervention and action of the customs. The DNRED is divided into three directions:

- the Division of the Customs Information (DRD),

- the Division of the Customs Investigations (DED),

- the Division of the Customs Operations (DOD).

Uniform

If, with the first access, it can appear astonishing that civil civils servant are equipped with a uniform, that is explained on the one hand by the will to be made recognize at the time of their missions and, on the other hand, by the History of this service.

The uniform of the customs dates from the Consulat (1800). All the customs officers were then equipped with it. With the Restoration, it becomes the prerogative of the only security services.

The most known uniform of the customs officer is the celestial “blue” pants with a band “garance” which materializes the Legion of honor received by the customs battalions. The badge of body is the grenade included in the horn. He recalls the assimilation of the battalions of the customs officers to the hunters with foot. Like any battalion, the Customs have their flag whose guard is entrusted to the National school of brigades of customs to La Rochelle.

Random links: