A video showing Carcassonne municipal police officers making racist and misogynistic remarks has sparked debate about the male-dominated culture in policing and its effects on the institution's functioning. The video, released on September 9 by Midi Libre, includes remarks such as, "The father, that's the father at the base, that's the one who gets aroused and has muscles. Cro-Magnon worked like that..." According to the report, until the end of the 1970s, the police was almost entirely composed of men. Today, women make up only 30% of the ranks of the "public security" police, with their distribution being uneven, particularly in units where physical force is central. In municipal police, this inequality is even more marked, with about 20% of women. The gap is even more pronounced within the police elite of the country: since World War II, only one woman has held the position of Minister of the Interior, Michèle Alliot-Marie, between 2007 and 2009. Sociologist Jérémie Gauthier, whose research focuses on issues of virilism and gender within the police, explains that "virile masculinity" is central to the police institution. This manifests itself in different ways depending on police specialties. Within the "public security" police, a pole associated with virile masculine values dominates, especially in units specialized in the use of force and the mastery of repressive tools, such as field specialized units, security companies or anti-criminality brigades (BAC). Although more feminized, the rotating brigades, also known as "police rescue," are also affected. In other services, such as the morals brigades or the juvenile brigades, the emotional, affective and "human" aspects are instead elevated to the rank of police skills by the officials, not only in the relationship with victims but also in the interactions with the accused. These are no longer structured around virile confrontation but rather implement a form of emotional work. Gauthier and Mathilde Darley's research indicates that gender constitutes an organizing principle of police work, structuring the internal hierarchy, defining what is perceived as the "real" police work, and participating in the selection of the populations targeted by the police. The most valued segment of the institution remains that where the potential use of force is the most important, such as BAC, security companies or intervention units. These segments are often referred to as the "virile pole" of the police. Women are very rare there, and these types of brigades are more supported by bonuses or material equipment, while offering police officers who compose them valuable experiences for their career progression. The gender as a principle of internal hierarchy is also visible in the speeches and representations of the police officers. A BAC officer explained that it was not necessary to "feminize too much" these units in order to preserve a virile image and thus an authority capital. For a police officer assigned to police rescue units, the most effective way to access more prestigious functions was to go through an anti-criminality brigade. This transition allowed him, in the eyes of his hierarchy, to demonstrate his ability to "jump on people," to apprehend, to do "small judicial work," and especially drug trafficking, and then to claim an assignment in judicial police services. The dominance of this virile pole also creates repulsive figures, such as the figure of the "social worker," which comes up very often in police speeches. This is a product of the history of the police institution. The very first women who entered the police in the 1930s had the mission of taking care of children who were victims or perpetrators. Coming from the social worker corps, they were named "police assistants." Today, the virile pole of the police differs from another pole, much less valued, that of the care of victims, the response to public requests or the reception in police stations: a set of tasks in which the use of force is absent or very secondary and where the required skills are rather procedural skills, listening, empathy or social accompaniment. However, these tasks are far from being marginal, as testified by the full waiting rooms in the police stations or the number of complaints filed, notably for domestic violence and, more broadly, for sexual and gender-based violence (VSS). Our investigations tend to show that the skills expected for this type of tasks are often associated with feminine qualities, in contrast with what is perceived as the "real" police work. Thus, the so-called family protection brigades, whose mission is to welcome victims of gender-based violence, are much more feminized than intervention units. The dominance of the virile pole within the police prevents the institution from reforming, as it contributes to the overinvestment of classical coercive tools, the devaluation of skills centered on conflict resolution, the response to social demands or the accompaniment of victims, and finally, the focus on masculine deviances in the public space. Sociology work has often shown that, unlike what one can observe in Germany or the United Kingdom, the French police is characterized by a particularly repressive style, more oriented towards the defense of the state's interests than those of the public. One of the manifestations of this style is the very frequent use of identity checks. French police officers are largely convinced that it is through this method that they will be able to make "cases," although the available studies indicate that the rate of detection of offenses following an identity check remains very low. Beyond their supposed penal effectiveness, these checks also serve to establish an authority relationship with a part of the population, suspected, rightly or wrongly, of criminal activities. The people checked are, in their overwhelming majority, racially profiled men from urban lower classes. They are also the main targets of police violence. If we look at lethal interactions, women represent only 6% of the people who died in this context. Thus, crime is most often thought of as a masculine practice. And the police officers evaluate themselves among themselves in terms of the criminals they are confronted with: the valued confrontation with the "real thug" is also a masculine face-to-face. The preservation of gender order within the police institution passes through certain forms of exclusion of deviances committed by women, ignored or devalued in their modes of action. Women's crime is, for example, often associated with shopping in the city center. Furthermore, this valorization of the masculine criminal functions, in many ways, serves as a reaffirmation of the superiority of men over female police officers. It is justified by the physical danger but also the traditionalist conceptions of gender roles attributed to the accused and referred to a different "origin" or "culture." In the end, it is not so much the use of force that is contested to female police officers, but rather their ability to mobilize it sufficiently to impose themselves in a power relationship with male criminals and of a so-called "foreign" culture. Questions of gender and sexuality are very present in the police world. The interviews conducted indicate that the order of gender and sexuality is manifested from the police school, often described as cultivating heterosexuality and masculinity: the repertoire of police performance. Future agents are required to embody authority, strength, self-assurance, physical courage, or readiness for combat. The sexuality of the recruits is not exempt from these normative injunctions from the police school, then, later, in the police stations. They constitute a highly sexualized professional environment, where the relationships of seduction occupy an important place. Similarly, the collective life in the police school, then the proximity in police stations and service vehicles, imply frequent transgressions between the intimate and professional spheres: flirting takes place under the gaze of peers and information on the marital situations and sexual availability of each is subject to particular attention. The relationship with sexuality leads to a particular treatment of sexual and gender-based violence by the police institution. The consideration of sexual and gender-based violence has evolved a lot in recent years. It has been placed on the political agenda, notably since the 2019 Grenelle on domestic violence, and the police have been the target of a fairly strong political injunction. Specialized brigades have been created, and complainants (responsible for receiving victims of VSS and their complaints) have been trained: we observe a prioritization of the reception of victims of VSS. However, this evolution encounters very strong limits: the limited and unevenly distributed means, as well as the persistence of gender stereotypes, but especially a culture oriented towards muscular intervention and judicialization, have the effect of maintaining the mismatch between the needs of victims and police responses. In the matter of domestic violence, for example, a number of victims expect primarily the recognition of the violence through an attitude of empathy and listening or an immediate protective intervention. The police, for whom the search for criminal offenses and judicial proceedings is a priority, often have a diametrically opposed perception. Female police officers contribute themselves to the repetition of gender stereotypes in a universe dominated by masculine values. In order to establish their legitimacy, female police officers must get rid of the image of "social worker" and distinguish themselves from "other women" by virilizing their behavior and appearance. This injunction to "virilization" leads female police officers to often reproduce the dominant masculine discourse on the place of women in the institution and the gender hierarchies that accompany them: sometimes skeptical about the feminization of the police, they are also numerous who consider themselves less able to establish an authority relationship, to confront danger or to resort to force. The adherence of female police officers to masculine values remains often a condition for access to professional legitimacy. Gender stereotypes also affect gay police officers or lesbian police officers. In an investigation conducted with Régis Schlagdenhauffen among lesbian police officers and gay police officers, experiences of stigmatization were identified, despite the evolution of policies on equality of rights and the fight against discrimination. The most commonly shared experience of heterosexism relates to a "discursive climate" (homophobic humor, degrading vocabulary, insult). It also manifests itself sometimes in hierarchical relationships: unjustified sanctions, poor evaluations, assignment of the "dirty work" or harassment due to sexual orientation. Facing heterosexism, lesbian police officers and gay police officers must implement strategies of concealment, circumvention and negotiation allowing them to "cope" while building their professional legitimacy. Finally, the hierarchy of sexualities appears to be aligned with that of gender, which makes the masculine prevail over the feminine. Thus, the conformity of gays and lesbians to the masculine attributes valued in the police profession can sometimes compensate for the stigma associated with their sexual orientation.