The Ministry of Armed Forces (French: Ministère des Armées, pronounced [ministɛʁ dez‿aʁme], lit. 'Ministry of the Armies') is the ministry of the Government of France in charge of managing the French Armed Forces inside and outside French territory. Its head is the Minister of the Armed Forces. From 1947 until 2017, the Ministry was designated the Ministry of Defence (French: Ministère de la Défense). It is France's ministry of defence.
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The French Army (French: Armée de terre, lit. 'Army of Land') is the land service branch of the French Armed Forces. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Staff of the French Army (CEMAT), who is subordinate to the Chief of the Defence Staff (CEMA), who in turn is responsible to the President of France. CEMAT is also directly responsible to the Ministry of Armed Forces for administration, preparation, and equipment.
The French Army, following the French Revolution, has generally been composed of a mixed force of conscripts and professional volunteers. It is now considered a professional force, since the French Parliament suspended the conscription of soldiers.
The French Air and Space Force (French: Armée de l'air et de l'espace, pronounced [aʁme d(ə) lɛʁ e d(ə) lɛspas], lit. 'Army of Air and Space') is the air and space force of the French Armed Forces. Formed in 1909 as the Service Aéronautique ("Aeronautical Service"), a service arm of the French Army, it became an independent military branch in 1934 as the French Air Force (Armée de l'air). On 10 September 2020, it assumed its current name, the French Air and Space Force, to reflect an "evolution of its mission" into the area of outer space.
The number of aircraft in service with the French Air and Space Force varies depending on the source; the Ministry of Armed Forces gives a figure of 658 aircraft in 2014. According to 2025 data, this figure includes 207 combat aircraft: 99 Dassault Mirage 2000 and 108 Dassault Rafale. As of 2021, the French Air and Space Force employs a total of 40,500 regular personnel, with a reserve element of 5,187 in 2014.
CNES (French: Centre national d'études spatiales, lit. 'National Centre for Space Studies') is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation.
It operates from the Toulouse Space Centre and the Guiana Space Centre. The president of CNES is François Jacq. CNES is a member of Institute of Space, its Applications and Technologies. It is Europe's largest national organization of its type.
The Archives nationales (French pronunciation: [aʁʃiv nɑsjɔnal]; abbreviated AN; English: National Archives) are the national archives of France. They preserve the archives of the French state, apart from the archives of the Ministry of Armed Forces and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as these two ministries have their own archive services, the Defence Historical Service (SHD) and Diplomatic Archives respectively. The National Archives of France also keep the archives of local secular and religious institutions from the Paris Region seized at the time of the French Revolution (such as local royal courts of Paris, suburban abbeys and monasteries, etc), as well as the archives produced by the notaries of Paris during five centuries, and many private archives donated or placed in the custody of the National Archives by prominent aristocratic families, industrialists, and historical figures.
The National Archives have one of the largest and oldest archival collections in the world. As of 2022, they held 383 km (238 mi) of physical records (the total length of occupied shelves put next to each other) from the year 625 to the present time, and as of 2020 74.75 terabytes (74,750 GB) of electronic archives.
École polytechnique (French pronunciation: [ekɔl pɔlitɛknik], lit. 'Polytechnic School'; also known as Polytechnique or l'X [liks]) is a grande école located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris.
The school was founded in 1794 by mathematician Gaspard Monge during the French Revolution and was militarized under Napoleon I in 1804. It is still supervised by the French Ministry of Armed Forces. Originally located in the Latin Quarter in central Paris, the institution moved to Palaiseau in 1976, in the Paris-Saclay technology cluster.
The École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées de Bretagne (French pronunciation: [ekɔl nɑsjɔnal sypeʁjœʁ də tɛknik(z‿)avɑ̃se də bʁətaɲ]; transl. "National Institute of Advanced Technologies of Brittany"), often referred as ENSTA Bretagne and formerly ENSIETA, is one of the 207 French engineering schools accredited on 1 September 2017 to deliver engineering diplomas (French grande école of engineering). The ENSTA Bretagne is a higher education establishment and a research centre run under the supervision of the French Ministry of Armed Forces which governs a total of 4 engineering schools: École Polytechnique, ENSTA ParisTech, ENSTA Bretagne and ISAE-Supaero. It is the most prestigious engineering school in France which deals with marine and naval engineering.
Moreover, ENSTA Bretagne is an applied school for the École Polytechnique, because of its excellence in lots of strategic fields. The school gets a specific partnership with IMT Atlantique, the second Institut Mines-Télécom of France while the best one is Telecom Paris.
The National Gendarmerie (French: Gendarmerie nationale [ʒɑ̃daʁməʁi nɑsjɔnal]) is one of two national law enforcement forces of France, along with the National Police. The Gendarmerie is a branch of the French Armed Forces placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior, with additional duties from the Ministry of Armed Forces. Its responsibilities include policing smaller towns, suburbs and rural areas, crowd and riot control, and criminal investigation, including cybercrime. By contrast, the National Police is a civilian law enforcement agency that is in charge of policing cities and larger towns. Because of its military status, the Gendarmerie also fulfills a range of military and defence missions. The Gendarmerie has a strength of around 102,269 people (as of 2018).
The Gendarmerie is the heir of the Maréchaussée, the oldest police force in France, dating back to the Middle Ages. The Gendarmerie has influenced the culture and traditions of gendarmerie forces around the world, especially in independent countries from the former French colonial empire.
The French Air and Space Force (French: Armée de l'air et de l'espace, pronounced [aʁme d(ə) lɛʁ e d(ə) lɛspas], lit. 'Army of Air and Space') is the air and space force of the French Armed Forces. Formed in 1909 as the Service Aéronautique ("Aeronautical Service"), a service arm of the French Army, it became an independent military branch in 1934 as the French Air Force (Armée de l'air). On 11 September 2020, it assumed its current name, the French Air and Space Force, to reflect an "evolution of its mission" into the area of outer space.
The number of aircraft in service with the French Air and Space Force varies depending on the source; the Ministry of Armed Forces gives a figure of 658 aircraft in 2014. According to 2025 data, this figure includes 207 combat aircraft: 99 Dassault Mirage 2000 and 108 Dassault Rafale. As of 2021, the French Air and Space Force employs a total of 40,500 regular personnel, with a reserve element of 5,187 in 2014.