Police Cars Extravaganza - Part 4: The French Gendarmerie

Roarington’s journey in discovering the most extravagant and unusual police vehicles stops this week in France. The first three-lane highways were created in France in the mid-1960s, and the rapid intervention vehicles (VRI - Véhicule Rapide d’Intervention) of the Gendarmerie appeared shortly after. In 1965, the Matra Djet debuted, initially used for training the BRI (Brigade d'Intervention Rapide) drivers before entering service with three additional units in 1967. From that moment, the color blue was adopted, and all VRIs introduced afterward sported this symbolic livery, as blue was the color of French Formula 1 cars.