Meyer and Laffont's, "The New Gendarmic Order," expressed a critical, harsh view of the gendarmerie in 1980. The article reviews the history of the gendarmerie and suggests that a misunderstanding of the gendarmerie by the authors explains the harsh, unwarranted criticism of the force in the publication. Yet the questioning of the force was beneficial to the force in that it prompted an internal examination that may have been the start of the change for the better that is visible today.