French Gendarmerie

The French Gendarmerie is the uniformed authority overseeing an authorized inspection of a family tomb in the investigation involving Amaia Salazar and Yolanda Berrueta. Its chief and patrols are present to enforce a tightly restricted judicial order: they provide the practical means for the inspection to proceed, but also ensure that its limits are observed. When the judge revokes the order, the chief immediately stops the operation. The episode makes the force’s role one of controlled enforcement, positioned between the investigation’s demands and the authority of the court.

Role and limits of the operation

The gendarmes accompany Amaia Salazar and two patrols to verify compliance with an order from Loraine de Gouvenain. The authorization permits the stone slab covering the tomb to be removed, entry into the burial chamber, and the opening of the children’s coffins solely to check that the bodies remain inside. It expressly forbids bringing the bodies to the surface or manipulating them in any way. Yolanda Berrueta is also permitted to look down from above and confirm that her children are where they should be. The force’s assigned role is therefore specific: ensure that access is granted under the order, while preventing the inspection from exceeding its terms.

The scene distinguishes permission to look from permission to handle. The bodies are the subject of the inquiry, but the order does not authorize their removal or examination. That distinction matters in a case where the investigation has encountered beliefs about the ritual use of the dead. Jonan Etxaide explains that some traditions regard children under two as moving between worlds; later, a witness describes a sacrificial rule requiring a girl under two who has not been baptized. These claims establish the inquiry’s disturbing context, but the gendarmes’ immediate task is narrower and verifiable: establish whether the children’s bodies are still in their coffins.

Presence at the cemetery

The operation unfolds after hours of rain. The chief, two patrols, and municipal officials wait beneath the small portico at the temple entrance while the wet stone darkens and moss and lichens show on the tombs. Yolanda, distressed but composed, leans against the priest as he comforts her. The gendarmes’ presence makes the inspection an official proceeding rather than a private confrontation, while their waiting also reflects the practical delay involved in opening the grave.

When an official dark-blue car arrives, the chief receives a telephone call and tells Amaia Salazar to accompany him because the judge has arrived. The detail places the chief at the point where the operation’s participants, the local police, and judicial authority meet. Loraine de Gouvenain remains in the car at first; Amaia Salazar notes her apparent dislike of the rain, while Iriarte’s description of her as tough has led Amaia to expect someone different. The chief, however, describes her as one of the best judges he knows, curious and perceptive, and says that she makes police work easier. He also connects her professional bearing to her father, a former head of the Sûreté de Paris.

Enforcing jurisdiction and the order

The chief’s authority is tested when a lawyer challenges Amaia Salazar’s presence, arguing that she has no jurisdiction there. The chief answers sarcastically that the lawyer is mistaken again and directs him to read the order, offering to read it aloud if necessary. His response grounds the operation in the written authorization rather than in a contest of assertion. After examining the document, the lawyer turns to the couple waiting under an umbrella and whispers to them; their angry protests follow. The chief then orders the uniformed police to give them twenty seconds to leave the cemetery and to arrest and transfer them to the station if they resist.

This exchange shows the gendarmes enforcing access to the site as well as the conditions of the inspection. The chief does not treat the lawyer’s objection as sufficient to stop the proceeding; he relies on the judge’s order and instructs the uniformed officers how to respond to resistance. The authority on display is procedural and local, yet it depends on a judicial document whose scope has already been carefully limited.

Revocation and narrative significance

The authorization does not remain in force. As the chief runs toward the group with his phone to his ear, he calls for the slab to be put back in place and informs them that the judge has revoked the order. Amaia Salazar reacts with disbelief, and the chief then tells her that the judge wants to speak with her. The inspection is halted before the planned check can be completed; the passage does not establish that the coffins were opened or that the bodies were verified.

The abrupt reversal defines the French Gendarmerie’s function in this episode. The force first makes the inspection possible and confronts those attempting to obstruct it, but it does not substitute its judgment for the court’s. The chief’s immediate instruction to restore the slab makes the hierarchy unmistakable: once the judge withdraws authorization, enforcement means stopping. For Amaia Salazar, the interruption leaves the central question unresolved; for the gendarmes, the change in the order changes what they are required to do.