- the merging destroyed what used to work well within both groups but didn't produce a better group ;
- the old guard is still actively resisting changes in both groups ;
- a lot of discrepancies between level of powers (local, regional and national) that both groups weren't seeing in the same way (they had a different who's who to call for help when they needed to push things around and people lost some status or credit when trying to prevent it).
The main problem that should have been addressed (better coordination between both groups) still remains as far as citizens are concerned.
There was a clash of culture since the "gendarmerie" was more like military and police more like armed civil servants. Lines are being blurred now but there are still weird intermediate unofficial rankings that are in place only for legacy and "don't move my cheese and hurt my feelings" reasons.
Salaries inequalities were too obvious and "adapted" responsibilities didn't match people's experience and training.
The overlap between the geographical regions each group were assigned to before the merging still transpires in the new system, like a ghost.
There was a huge power struggle.
I am sure these problems will totally disappear in a generation but it didn't go anywhere as smooth as the politicians said it would. And the results isn't necessarily better.
One thing hasn't changed though: they still send officers from one linguistic region to the other when dealing with protestations motivated by hot and sensible topics.
There still are two different kind of police: the local one and the federal one. The local authorities hire officers while the federal one has an endless supply of new recruits* but every officers come from the same police academies.
* gross exaggeration here.
To be honest it's not a problem of merging two groups or having only one police faction. It was badly handled and rushed by the political world at the time (they were in a hurry to fix many problems that were hot topic at that time, people were in the street and the merging was part of the answer). But I can't see how such huge changes in a society could be made without the political world being under huge pressure to do so. So I can't see how those kind of changes can't be done without being rushed.
Keep in mind it's only my advice and it was a sensible topic at some point. Some opinions are really polarized about all this.
- It was really expensive ;
- the merging destroyed what used to work well within both groups but didn't produce a better group ;
- the old guard is still actively resisting changes in both groups ;
- a lot of discrepancies between level of powers (local, regional and national) that both groups weren't seeing in the same way (they had a different who's who to call for help when they needed to push things around and people lost some status or credit when trying to prevent it).
The main problem that should have been addressed (better coordination between both groups) still remains as far as citizens are concerned.
There was a clash of culture since the "gendarmerie" was more like military and police more like armed civil servants. Lines are being blurred now but there are still weird intermediate unofficial rankings that are in place only for legacy and "don't move my cheese and hurt my feelings" reasons.
Salaries inequalities were too obvious and "adapted" responsibilities didn't match people's experience and training.
The overlap between the geographical regions each group were assigned to before the merging still transpires in the new system, like a ghost.
There was a huge power struggle.
I am sure these problems will totally disappear in a generation but it didn't go anywhere as smooth as the politicians said it would. And the results isn't necessarily better.
One thing hasn't changed though: they still send officers from one linguistic region to the other when dealing with protestations motivated by hot and sensible topics.
There still are two different kind of police: the local one and the federal one. The local authorities hire officers while the federal one has an endless supply of new recruits* but every officers come from the same police academies.
* gross exaggeration here.
To be honest it's not a problem of merging two groups or having only one police faction. It was badly handled and rushed by the political world at the time (they were in a hurry to fix many problems that were hot topic at that time, people were in the street and the merging was part of the answer). But I can't see how such huge changes in a society could be made without the political world being under huge pressure to do so. So I can't see how those kind of changes can't be done without being rushed.
Keep in mind it's only my advice and it was a sensible topic at some point. Some opinions are really polarized about all this.