The Directorate-General of Customs and Indirect Taxes is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 law enforcement agency

Law enforcement agency

In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...

 responsible for levying indirect taxes, preventing smuggling, surveilling borders, and investigating counterfeit money. The agency acts as a coast guard

Coast guard

A coast guard or coastguard is a national organization responsible for various services at sea. However the term implies widely different responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to being a volunteer organization tasked with...

, border guard

Border guard

The border guard, frontier guard, border patrol, border police, or frontier police of a country is a national security agency that performs border control, i.e., enforces the security of the country's national borders....

, sea rescue

Rescue

Rescue refers to responsive operations that usually involve the saving of life, or prevention of injury during an incident or dangerous situation....

 organisation and immigration

Immigration

Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...

 service, as well as a customs

Customs

Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...

 service.

The Directorate-general is controlled by the Minister for the Budget, Public Accounts and the Civil Service
at the Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Employment. It is normally known simply as "la Douane", individual officers being referred to as "douaniers". It is an armed service.

History

The first French customs service was called the General Firm and operated under the monarchy. During the revolutionary period, a military customs service was formed, which provided a customs service but also fought in major wars such as the Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

 and the First World War.

The military customs service fought in the early part of the Second World War but was disbanded in 1940 after the French defeat and was never reconstituted as a military service. Nonetheless small units of customs men from customs posts in French Indochina

French Indochina

French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....

 fought against the Japanese as guerilla units until the end of the war.

Organisation

The customs headquarters is in Montreuil

Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis

Montreuil is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. It is the third most populous suburb of Paris...

 (Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

).
The agency consists of three types of unit:

• Administration centrale
  • Sub-directorates A to F
  • Département des statistiques et des études économiques
  • Inspection des services (IS) for internal auditing
  • Bureau de l'information et de la communication (BIC) for communications
  • Cellule de contrôle de gestion

• National Competence Services
  • Direction nationale du recrutement et de la formation professionnelle (DNRFP) based in Tourcoing
    Tourcoing
    Tourcoing is a city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Nord.Tourcoing is situated near the cities of Lille and Roubaix and the Belgian border.-Main sights:...
    
    
  • Direction nationale du renseignement et des enquêtes douanières (DNRED) against fraud
  • Direction nationale des statistiques et du commerce extérieur (DNSCE), a statistical service based in Toulouse
    Toulouse
    Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
    
    
  • Centre informatique douanier (CID), an information technology service based in Osny
    Osny
    Osny is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris, in the "new town" of Cergy-Pontoise, created in the 1960s.-Transportation:...
    
    
  • Service nationale de la douane judiciaire (SNDJ), a judicial investigative service based in Vincennes
    Vincennes
    Vincennes is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is one of the most densely populated municipalities in Europe.-History:...
    
    .
  • Service commun des laboratoires (SCL), providing scientific support in laboratories

Decentralised Services

France is divided into 39 customs regions, which are grouped into 12 customs "inter-regions".

A customs region typically consists of:

• Managerial, training and logistic services
• Cutoms Offices: dealing with commerce
• Customs Brigades: Squads dealing with surveillance
• A regional unit
• A wines unit

As well as the 39 customs regions there are 4 coastguard regions: Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

 & North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

, Nantes

Nantes

Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....

, Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

, Antilles

Antilles

The Antilles islands form the greater part of the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. The Antilles are divided into two major groups: the "Greater Antilles" to the north and west, including the larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola , and Puerto Rico; and the smaller "Lesser Antilles" on the...

-Guyana

French Guiana

French Guiana is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations, Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west...

).

Ranks

Customs officials of all ranks wear French rank insignia based on that of the army. However, the ranks should not be seen as equivalent to the army rank insignia used.

Customs agents (agents de constatation) wear the rank badges of French army senior NCOs:

: Customs Agent 2

: Customs Agent 1

: Principal Customs Agent 2

: Principal Customs Agent 1

Controllers are more senior and wear the rank badges of French army junior officers:

: Controller 2

: Controller 1

: Principal Controller

Inspectors are more senior and wear the rank badges of the French army ranks of commandant

Commandant

Commandant is a senior title often given to the officer in charge of a large training establishment or academy. This usage is common in anglophone nations...

 and lieutenant-colonel:

: Inspector

: Principal Inspector

Air

In 2010 the aircraft fleet consists of Reims-Cessna F406 maritime patrol aircraft and C-T206, Eurocopter EC-135 and Aerospatiale AS-355 helicopters manufactured by Eurocopter. Two Reims-Cessna F406 operate out of Martinique and the rest are based in metropolitain France.

6 Reims-Cessna F406 and 3Eurocopter EC-135 are assigned to the atlantic region, 4 Reims-Cessna F406 and 2Eurocopter EC-135 are assigned to the mediterranean region, 2 C-T206, 1 Reims-Cessna F406  and 2 Aerospatiale AS-355 are based in Paris (Bourget) and 2 Reims-Cessna F406  are based in Fort de France (Martinique) soon to be joined by 2 additional Aerospatiale AS-355.

From 2012 onwards 8 Beechcraft King Air 350 will replace the F406 .

Maritime

In 2010 the customs had 3 offshore patrol boats, 18 coastal patrol boats, 18 surveillance patrol boats and 5 speed boats. The boats are assigned as follows:

• North sea/Channel:

1 Offshore Patrol Boat

2 Coastal Patrol Boat

1 Surveillance Patrol Boat

2 speed boats

• Atlantic

1 Offshore Patrol Boat

4 Coastal Patrol Boat

3 Surveillance Patrol Boat

2 speed boats

• Mediterranean

8 Coastal Patrol Boat

8 Surveillance Patrol Boat

• Antilles/South America

4 Coastal Patrol Boat

5 Surveillance Patrol Boat

• Polynesia

1 Offshore Patrol Boat

1 Speed boat