French motorcycle officers to come in California for training

If you get pulled over on a California highway next month, you might want to address the officer as "Monsieur le policier."

That’s because 32 French motorcycle officers are trading the cold, gray Parisian winter for sunny, southern California for an 11-day-long training program.

The initiative — the first of its kind between French and American motorcycle police units — starts Jan. 6, France’s national police said in a statement Friday.

The officers belong to traffic units in Paris and the nearby suburb of Creteil and to a riot police unit specializing in motorcades. They are to train with the California Highway Patrol, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Police Departments.

The French officers will get a dose of Hollywood glamour when they assist their Beverly Hills counterparts on security operations for the Jan. 15 Golden Globe awards.

But the program will not be all California glitz. The training is to focus on crowd control — particularly the methods used by California officers during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles, the statement said.

Last year, French authorities were confronted with a rash of fiery riots that swept through the country’s poor, mostly immigrant suburbs for three weeks.