Talk:Administrative police (France)

Police department or agency vs. policing functions
The article is misleading in part, especially where it uses the word corps imho, which makes it sound like a particular department, agency, or unit of police; but that's not what it is, it's more of a functionality, deriving from the Constitution, and this functionality can cross various departments, and as pointed out already in the article, different functionalities such as this one as well as Judicial police can be all in the same department. (My impression is, that it can even be embodied in a single individual exercising different functions at different times, but I'd have to verify that.) The basic distinction between "administrative" police and "judicial" police is that the former engage proactively to prevent crime, while the latter engage reactively to investigate, prosecute, and punish crime.

That this is confusing, became clear recently when a good-faith effort was made by in this edit to categorize this article, as well as Judicial police (France), in Category:Law enforcement agencies of France‎. That's not right, because they aren't really agencies, more functions of different agencies or actors, but I can well see how one could get that impression from the way the article reads now. Both articles should be adjusted to state more clearly the functional nature of administrative and judicial policing and that it's not one, monolithic department somewhere. I can even see an argument for changing the title from "Administrative police" to "Administrative policing", which would then make it clearer that it's a function, not an agency. On the flip side, the French terms are the simple nouns, not the equivalent of English -ing forms, so we'd have to check if there's support in English sources for the title in -ing; but we're getting slightly away from the central topic of clarifying and defining the topic, which should be done in the lead, and in the lead sentence.

I haven't located a good governmental article which explains the administrative police [function] yet, but this Le Monde article does a pretty good job of describing it, as well as comparing it with judicial police. As far as the latter is concerned, there are some resources at Ministere de la Justice, such as in this article about Les acteurs de la justice pénale which lists five groups which are considered part of the police judiciaire (and this one on police investigations may help as well).

As it happens, I'm buried right now, and not sure when I can get to this. User:Elinruby, any chance you could take a look at these two articles and see what you think? If not, I should be able to make a quick fix in a week or two, and something more in depth later. Mathglot (talk) 11:49, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok. I will at least look. I am inclined to go with policing based on your explanation, but let's start with me reading the articles; it'll also give me s good reason to procrastinate on the pricedure for obtaining a birth certificate for a newborn. Sourcing will probably have to wait until tomorrow. Elinruby (talk) 12:05, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, this is very stilted and formal jargon. Let me reassure you that it isn't you ;) I think the key point is that we don't have to translate word for word. And we better get ordre publique translated. I think I can do some good here but you'll eventually have to review, as I've been working a different end of the project. But yeah, check back in couple of days. Elinruby (talk) 12:30, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Will do, thanks. Mathglot (talk) 12:35, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * As far as ordre public, I haven't gotten to the O's in the glossary yet, but the MdlJ Lexique has it, here. Not in English, of course, but at least a definition. Also, Dalloz has this page about it. Mathglot (talk) 12:46, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Mislinking
ordre public linked to Public policy doctrine which is definite wrong, nor is "public order" correct Elinruby (talk) 12:47, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I remember seeing that link and was surprised. Mathglot (talk) 20:37, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

There is a vague association. But it's definitely not the same thing Elinruby (talk)

Continental waters
Probably could be translated as Zterritorial waters? Elinruby (talk) 03:26, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Ordre public
Translating a chunk of that article into this one for clarity. Not a final draft obviously Elinruby (talk) 13:56, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Wiktionary entry is a translation of the common law term, ie wrong in this context Elinruby (talk) 15:58, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * See the comments at the end of section above. Mathglot (talk) 01:18, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Read them. Agree with them Elinruby (talk) 17:28, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Salubre
Sanitary, healthy, healthful...Elinruby (talk) 13:59, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

unsettled on healthful, what do you think? They were probably thinking of pollution when they wrote that. Elinruby (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Are you referring to salubrité, as found in section #Notion d'ordre public, in this sentence:
 * In that context, it's just "public health". Or, are you talking about another context?
 * Btw, this mentions a specific act or law by number, and you know about the upgraded French law template series I've been working on, right? You can generate a link to the relevant law like this:
 * (For details on how to use the French Legifrance website, and the template Legifrance above, see below.)
 * Or, were you talking about some other context for salubre in the article? Mathglot (talk) 01:56, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * (For details on how to use the French Legifrance website, and the template Legifrance above, see below.)
 * Or, were you talking about some other context for salubre in the article? Mathglot (talk) 01:56, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Nope nope, public health is good, better than what I came up with. Elinruby (talk) 02:07, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

compétence contentieuse
Contentious capacity? I think they are talking about mixed cases. Also, responsabilité,? Skipping this paragraph for now Elinruby (talk) 14:19, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Haven't looked at the original, but compétence in a legal context usually means "who is the right court/agency/person to deal with something"; e.g., le cour compétent pour X is "the court having jurisdiction over X", so for criminal matters, the cour compétent is the police tribunal in the first instance. Contentieux has to do with civil disagreements that need administrative adjudication; e.g., when our apartment got damaged because some pipe burst in the one upstairs, that's a contentieux process, because even though we were good neighbors, there's a legal process set in motion in which we're on opposite sides, at least from the (administrative) perpetrator and (administrative) victim point of view, even though we got along well. Mathglot (talk) 20:55, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see; you must be talking about this sentence from section Police administrative et police judiciaire:
 * It's poorly written, but the whole section is trying to define the separation between "judicial" and "administrative" justice, and sometimes it's not so clear, or even mixed in some cases, as that section points out elsewhere. The "responsabilité " part is about who is "lead agency" when both are involved; i.e., who gets to do the honors, the police court (fr:Tribunal de police) if it's criminal, or administrative Court (fr:Tribunal administratif (France)), if it's an administrative issue. There's even one special court, the Tribunal des conflits, whose sole purpose is to decide which one has jurisdiction (compétence) when they can't decide which one it is.
 * I think we can just dump that sentence, and concentrate on better sources which attempt to explain the same thing (i.e., the diff between admin. and judicial polie, such as the Le Monde article above. There's even some terminology for when one of those contentieux cases crosses the line and is both admin. and judicial; see for example partie civile. Mathglot (talk) 21:19, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, responsabilité is what I was boggling on. Elinruby (talk) 15:06, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, responsabilité is what I was boggling on. Elinruby (talk) 15:06, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

French law enforcement
The new category was needed because this isn't common law, and also this is an article about an abstract concept not an organizational unit Elinruby (talk) 14:22, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Check for terms of art
Consent Elinruby (talk) 14:58, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Management might be the wrong word Elinruby (talk) 14:59, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Labour law Elinruby (talk) 16:00, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Normative law, allocative efficiencies Elinruby (talk) 16:53, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Ordre public
Ghantous Marie. Ordre Public Protection as Legitimate Aim for Freedom of Expression Restriction in the International Legal Order. In: Revue Québécoise de droit international, volume 31-1, 2018. pp. 243-267.

www.persee.fr/doc/rqdi_0828-9999_2018_num_31_1_2407 Elinruby (talk) 15:33, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * In some invdividual contexts, this really can be "public order", but not when they're talking about the lofty principles which underlie the whole purpose of administrative law and administrative policing. I'd say it depends on the purpose and structure of the sentence, but something like "maintain[ing] the peace" would fit in some contexts. That's might be an AE- only expression, and not sure if BE uses "maintain the peace" as an objective of (some facet of) policing in UK, but we need some kind of expression like that, that targets the preventative function. Mathglot (talk) 21:28, 14 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Somehow "public order" has Nixonian overtones don't you think? Not to mention Mussolini, who got the trains to run on time. Is that just me? I think it's more like "public well-being", not just "public health". And apparently this is a point of contention in European jurisprudence, so it might even be "the good old days" in a Norman Rockwell kind of way. Elinruby (talk)`

Guido Calabresi
Has article Elinruby (talk) 16:58, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Tranquilité
Quiet? Elinruby (talk) 16:59, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * If you're talking about tranquillité publique in section Au niveau communal, I think it's basically a situational synonym for ordre public. My guess is that one might use ordre public in a larger, urban setting, or at least in some setting where major demonstrations, even rioting was a threat on occasion, whereas in Sleepy Hollow, pop. 633, where the biggest problem is a dog bite or a rare bar fight, it would seem weird to use a strong term like that, so I suspect tranquillité publique is just "ordre public lite", or elegant variation to avoid repeating the same term all the time. I might be missing something, but that's my read of it. Mathglot (talk) 21:40, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

this one especially was mostly rhetorical since one of the sources mentioned a demonstration, ie what happened in Brasilía was not that. But there seems to be some sort of controversy over integrating local versions of ordre public into European regulations Elinruby (talk) 22:57, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for grouping this by the way. I was in full too many pages open mode. I felt a need to get straight what ordre public was. I will copy some of this text to that article and slim this down and get it back on topic. I added to the Glossary and know I messed up the format in the midst of a brain bubble. I promise to fix that before Monday. I had a questions about whether some of the terms translated properly (since some of them didn't). That's what the term of art section is about. I have a couple of hours of spurt in me tonight, maybe a little more tomorrow, and then an hour or so of cleanup. Took a break to eat and gawk at a long-overdue comeuppance, which was a glorious thing. Elinruby (talk) 23:28, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Don't worry about format screw-ups at the glossary; also, feel free to add stuff with no definition (in that case, just add " " or similar wording, under the new glossary term, to make it easier to find. Ha ha, enjoy the schadenfreude! Mathglot (talk) 01:16, 15 January 2023 (UTC)


 * the brain bubble had to do with "French article", where on several entries I put "Le" or "La" despite the ILL syntax, lol. I am back to this now. I will need another break to help an editor who was getting bullied over among other things his English. He was headed for a CIR despite being as far as I can tell correct on the facts. Anyway. For tonight I am in the administrative police. Elinruby (talk) 15:04, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Jurisprudence section
Going to do some reading here; I used "clarify" in my first pass to translate dégager, which normally afaik means "get unstuck". <-- (this part is a reminder to myself to make a call on this, and invite to weigh in when it's convenient.) Although I guess I should check that also, as it's recently been demonstrated to me elsewhere that I can be quite wrong about things I am very sure about, lol. Plan: Going to go look up those judgements up on the French side now. Next move will probably be to compare this article to the French police administrative, and get this one back on topic. Since it does seem to require an understanding of ordre public maybe I should translate that as part of that effort, so that we won't need as big a chunk of that article in this one. Still unsure how to translate it.Elinruby (talk) 18:03, 16 January 2023 (UTC)


 * text of Dame Noualek decision: Elinruby (talk) 18:07, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Text of Giry decision:

Both of these seem to deal with who is responsible for damages resulting from police operations. Dame Noualek was a bystander who was shot in the hand. Giry, if I understand it, deals with the responsibility of a physician called in by police. Neither has an article at fr.wiki, and I will re-read more closely. Elinruby (talk) 18:19, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Tips on using Legifrance
The Légifrance website is 100% complete for French law: they have every law, every version of every law, or act, or decrete, or arrete, or judicial opinion, going back to 1529. So it's comprehensive, and that's good; the downside is, when you search for something, you often get a zillion results, and it can be hard to find the one you want, and you have to refine your search carefully. Bottom line: there's a learning curve to using it, but it's great, and worth the effort. The way I found the link to the example in section above, was by going to the home page at https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr, and searching for:
 * which I took right out of the highlighted quotation in that section. The result page lists "Article L2212-2" as the first result, and it's the right one.
 * which I took right out of the highlighted quotation in that section. The result page lists "Article L2212-2" as the first result, and it's the right one.

It may be easier to use one of the templates which work with that website; they include: Legifrance, cite Legifrance, and sfn Legifrance. The first one can be used to generate a direct link to a law. Taking the case of above as an example, you could link L.2212-2 mentioned in the article, like this:

although the trick is knowing what value to use for base (the 'base' values are given at the French template page, here, although I will eventually port them over to en-wiki). Click that link to go straight to the text of the law in Legifrance. If you want to write a citation to that law for an article, see the doc for Sfn Legifrance and Cite Legifrance.

To get the right "base" code for the template, I went to the French doc page here, and searched for "code général des collectivités territoriales" in the table, and found value listed there, which is the correct value to use, to generate. HTH, Mathglot (talk) 02:02, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Common law vs civil law
One reason I've been so tentative in ordre public is that a lot of the references are to Canadian law, which I always thought of as a common law jurisdiction. Yet this is the French article>, so perhaps this is Quebec, which leads to some questions in my mind about the separation of under the fairly recent constitution. Just noting here something I wondered about, not really a question that required an answer Elinruby (talk) 15:16, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Elinruby, Canada has common law (except for Quebec, kind of like common law in the U.S., is everywhere except Louisiana). Mostly paired with the common law/civil law distinction, is the judicial system (my term; I don't know what they are called collectively) which is either an adversarial system as in the UK, US, and most—but not all—common law countries, and the inquisitorial system, as in France, and most, but not all, civil law countries.
 * For many French criminal law terms, your best bet (if the glossaries at MdlJ and Justice.fr don't have it) is Jean-Paul Doucet's very detailed Dictionnaire de droit criminel, which reminds me of the OED in its level of detail. This is the case for ordre public which has a long entry here Doucet quotes something from the 1848 Constitution. It's all in French, of course, but the fact that he gives these attestations might make it possible to track down; French Wikisource surely must have the 1848 Constitution]], and if we're lucky, someone has translated it on English Wikisource. Sometimes Gallica has English versions of constitutions and other foundational documents, so maybe they have an English version of it. My guess is that this one *is* one term where the literal translation works, and we'll end up with "public order", probably; but it might need an efn-type explanatory note with some comments about where it comes from and a couple of links to Légifrance (or Doucet), just so that English-speaking readers in common law countries don't assume it means exactly the same thing. Mathglot (talk) 20:51, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

For glossary
Arrêt: dictionaries say judgement, which is the sense where it is used in this article. But I think it can sometimes be decree, possibly in archaic contexts. Needs research.

Faute lourde -See fr:Faute lourde en droit administratif français

fourrière - in this article I translated as impound, which I think is correct here, but apparently can also mean pound as in animal shelter. The major point appears to be government custody

Finalité - in this article I translated as finality, which may be wrong. Concept has its own fr.wiki page but none on en.wiki. appears to stem from teleology. Elinruby (talk) 18:53, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Elinruby, please don't add any of them that are not part of criminal law; almost every term you find in articles about French administrative law are not relevant to criminal law, and are out of scope for the glossary. Please either start a new Draft:Glossary of French civil law or just hang on to all of these, until the criminal glossary is done, otherwise it never will be. If you want to start a new Draft, I can help create the skeleton if you want, and help you get going with it. It might be a natural way to divide the work up and not worry about edit conflicts, if you work on the civil stuff, while I work on the criminal stuff, if you want to approach it that way. As it is, there some definitions you added to the criminal glossary that will have to come out, because they are not from criminal law. Mathglot (talk) 20:57, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and added ordre public to the glossary; you can find it at: Draft:Glossary of French criminal law. It is based on definitions in the MdlJ glossary, and Prof. Doucet's dictionary. Mathglot (talk) 21:00, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * See bon père de famille. The glossary is still only 5 or 10% done, but there are a fair number of A, B, and C terms, so worth checking for terms beginning with those letters. Your other terms above, afaict, are civil law terms; I'll try to find definitions for you (check MdlJ, Justice.fr, and Doucet's glossary), but please donm't add them to the criminal law glossary. Mathglot (talk) 21:06, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok. I wondered about that. Probably that is the way to go. (Separate glossaries) The mention of edit conflicts makes me wonder if you are wanting to work on these. I am not going to get to judicial police today for sure, if you want to work on that. As far as this one is concerned, I realize that my single-screen editing method is a lot more chaotic than yours, and would like to get this one in a better state before I turn it back over to you. I do need to take a break right now for an hour or so however, as cell service seems to be out in the area and I need to ask a couple of people questions so I guess I'll have to go over there. I am currently stuck on faute lourde and will need to look that up, unless you feel like doing that. Apparently it's like a dol but worse, which doesn't help me much but might tell you something, since I note it's in the Glossary, where I didn't quite understand it either. Back soon. Elinruby (talk) 21:16, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I have a template for French law articles that I'll spruce up and give you; and one of the early versions of the criminal law glossary has just skeleton, and no definitions; that would be a good starting point for the administrative law glossary, and wouldn't take me much time to create, all I'd have to do is change "criminal" to "administrative" everywhere, and it's practically done. I'll get to that tomorrow, probably.
 * I know about faute grave and wonder if that's related to faute lourde somehow. For example, worker protection is very strong in France, so it's almost impossible to fire someone, even if they're incompetent or get lousy reviews; that's not considered enough. Other than for layoffs in a downturn (licenciement economique), which is legit (if not abused to cover arbitrary firing), the only way to fire someone is faute grave, like they stole equipment, or refuse to come in to work, or sabotage, that sort of thing. Even so, there's a whole procedure the company has to go through, to prove the faute grave, before the firing is upheld. I wonder if faute lourde is either an earlier term for that (the French keep changing their names for things) or whether it's maybe related, or possibly even there's a scale of fautes, starting with minor ones, and then lourde and grave, but I wouldn't know in what order. Just an idea. Try a google search with both terms quoted separately in one query, and see if that turns up anything. Or just google, Quelle est la difference entre "faute lourde" et "faute grave" and see what happens. Mathglot (talk) 00:31, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I do realize that common law is not the same as civil law. I also realize the influence on Quebec, Haiti, Louisiana etc. We went through this on slavery. But some of the earlier definitions of a person go back to Roman law, like capacity and what is a person. Just musing. Unless you object, I plan to move the section titled Differences from common law back to the English public order article that I am about to create, btw. Elinruby (talk) 23:38, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, a lot of the criminal stuff goes back to the Romans, too. The whole, uncodified law system throughout the Middle Ages and up to the Revolution started off with the Roman laws, slowly supplanted during feudalism with seigneurial control, and then the monarchy. Go have a look at French criminal law, which has some good stuff on this, although I had to cut it short because my ILL loan book (Elliott-2001) was due back; it's such a good source on the topic, I decided I couldn't do without it and I found a cheap paperback copy of it online, and it's on its way to me (from the UK!). I also just picked up another ILL, "Histoire de la magistrature française : des origines à nos jours" (Rousselet-1957) which is this big, fat tome, the result of 35 years of work, and I wish I could keep it; we could write the History of the judiciary of France as a summary parent article, and have 20 child articles under it all based on it. It's big and long, but unlike some authors, he is really easy to understand; there's just tons there to absorb. I'll regret having to return it. Mathglot (talk) 00:49, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Good idea on faute lourde. Google says it's the worst kind of faute. Even worse than a dol. written in the present tense, recently Elinruby (talk) 00:38, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks like it's a 3-tiered scale: faute simple, grave, then lourde. Mathglot (talk) 00:53, 17 January 2023 (UTC) From what I just read, sounds like 'not coming in to work' is grave, stealing or sabotage would be lourde. Mathglot (talk) 00:54, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

And also the template.Elinruby (talk) 00:39, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah there was something about the specifics depending on what branch of law it was, but that sounds likely true for labor law. Elinruby (talk) 01:18, 17 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Further responses:
 * arreté – an order. un arrêté ministériel = a ministerial order;
 * mise en fourrière – as you say, "impound" (or "seize", or even "confiscate", sometimes) a vehicle
 * finalité – purpose. "finalité du projet" = aim/goal/purpose of the project.
 * degagé – not the standard sense here; just means "established" here, and that's the word I'd use in English. I get a slight whiff of "revealed" along with the "established" in that sentence, as if it was in preparation for some time, and then, voila! they pulled the rabbit out of the hat, establishing it with a bit of fanfare, or surprise, or something. I could be wrong about this.
 * HTH, Mathglot (talk) 11:12, 17 January 2023 (UTC)


 * yeah, I think the common meaning is "get unstuck" Elinruby (talk) 09:18, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Could be, but the main one for dégager is "clear the way", "make a path", "get [sthg.] out of the way" (in participial or adjectival form as dégagé, it's "cleared", as in, is the driveway cleared of snow yet, or is your car out of the way). As an imperative, "Dégage!" is "Gtf out of my way!" Also, and I know this has been mentioned elsewhere, but to repeat here since it's mentioned above: the glossary for administrative terms is in draft at Draft:Glossary of French administrative law. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:40, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Done for now
Still needs some polishing and checking, but I've overwritten myself a couple of times and need a break. i think all the sections are translated Elinruby (talk) 08:51, 17 January 2023 (UTC)