Units / France / GIGN

 

The GIGN ( Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale ), is the French Gendarmerie 's elite counter-terrorism and hostage rescue unit.

Its missions include the arrest of armed criminals, in particular those taking hostages , counter-terrorism and dealing with airplane hijacking , and prevention of mutiny in prisons.

GIGN headquarters are in Satory , west of Paris . GIGN initially had 15 members, which increased to 48 by 1984 , 57 by 1988 , and 87 by 2000 . By 2007, the new GIGN group has 200 members.

 

 

Along with the EPIGN and the GSPR it formed the GSIGN ( Groupement de Sécurité et d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale). After a restructuration in September 2007, EPIGN and GSPR don't exist anymore. All the former GSIGN units are now part of the new GIGN.

After the Munich massacre during the Olympic Games in 1972 , and a prison mutiny in Clairvaux the next year, France started to study the possible solutions to extremely violent attacks, under the assumptions that these would be difficult to predict and deflect.

In 1973 , the GIGN was created as a permanent force of men trained and equipped to respond to these kind of threats while minimising risks for the public and hostages, for the members of the unit, and for the attackers themselves. The GIGN became operational on the first of March, 1974 , under command of Lieutenant Christian Prouteau .

The GIGN is now divided into five forces :

  • 3 Operational forces : Intervention Force, Observation/Search Force and the Security/Protection Force.
  • 1 Operational Support Force, including negotiation, breaching, intelligence, communications, marksmanship, dogs and special equipment cells. The special equipment group equips the unit with modified and high-tech equipment, by either selecting or designing it.
  • 1 Formation Force for internal and external formation.

 

GIGN is used about 60 times each year. All members go through training which includes shooting , long-range marksmanship , an airborne course and hand-to-hand combat techniques ( Krav Maga ). Members of the GIGN are widely regarded as having some of the best firearms training in the world. It is for this reason that many of the world's special operations and counterterrorist units conduct exchange programs with the GIGN. Most of the GIGN volunteers are family men rather than the supermen which the media often makes them out to be.

 

Members never say GIGN but instead say "the group." Mental ability and self-control are important in addition to physical strength. Like most special forces, the training is stressful with a high washout rate of only 7-8% of volunteers making it to the training process. GIGN military must be prepared to disarm suspects with their bare hands. All the members of the GIGN can stay in the unit no more than 2 or 3 years, and must evolve to other units after that.

Since its creation, the group has taken part in over 1000 operations, liberated over 500 hostages, arrested over 1000 suspects, and killed a dozen terrorists. The unit has seen two members killed in action, and seven in training, since its foundation, and two of its dogs in action and one in training.

 
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This article is based on the english article on wikipedia here and on the french article on the Gendarmerie Nationale site here.