In France (I live there) courts have determined that a normal-sized Laguiole-type pocket knife is not a weapon but a 'traditional culinary tool'. It seems that the same thing has happened with Opinels. In the latter case, more difficult as they do have a locking ring and could thus, according to urban lawyer types (the people who tend to become members of parliament or government bureaucrats) be used as a stabbing weapon. The Laguiole is a slipjoint with a very sturdy backspring, but no lock.
There are in fact few precise descriptions of 'illegal' blades in France. As in many countries, stillettos and similar automatic knives are banned. For the rest, there is a list of characteristics used by customs that define blades that illegal to import. That includes double-edged blades of more than 150 mm, with a substantial hand guard. Basically, bayonets and similar stuff. Most sturdy fixed blades with one cutting edge are not illegal to own or to carry when you have a good excuse, like doing forestry work or working on a farm and so on. Hunting knives and even spears with humongously aggressive blades and telescopic poles are legal when you are a hunter and on a hunt or on your way to and from one (so are pump-action shotguns and heavy-calibre sniper rifles with telescopic sights and silencers, but then, hunters have a very powerful lobby in this country). But even a hunter is not supposed to walk into his local bank carrying a ten-inch bowie (or his gun).
The crux is that any object that can be used as a 'weapon by intent' is illegal, at the discretion of law enforcement officers. So you can take your Laguiole to a French bistro to cut your steak, but it will be confiscated if you are stopped and frisked near a riot. Then, carrying a brick you just liberated from the road is also considered carrying a weapon by intent...
The freedom of law enforcement officers to decide what is acceptable depending on the situation means that on the one hand you can get away with a lot in rural France where the Gendarmerie acts as the police and where they know that people always carry knives to repair fences, prune bushes, cut bread, cheese and sausages and so on (as they do themselves), but that a city policeman may confiscate your knife because has a less relaxed attitude towards bladed items that in his operational environment may often be used as weapons in bad neighborhoods. Or a policeperson may just confiscate it because they hope to add a nice knife to their own collection... (one reason to always officially protest and take it to a judge if it concerns a valuable knife and not some ten-dollar cheapo).
Personally, I have had to check in my Laguiole and two Leathermans at the entry of a Parisian museum and got them back when I left; I have pulled a machete from my car in front of a Gendarme to chop away at bramble bushes that blocked our way into a field where I had landed my hot-air balloon, and the guy did not blink (OK, the passenger of the balloon flight was his mum, but still...). I have also walked into the local offices of the gendarmerie several times on different business while carrying my Laguiole and Leatherman visibly in sheaths on my belt, without any reaction at all. But when I travel to Paris and have to use the metro there, or visit some government building, I don't carry my usual blades, I'll take a mini leatherman squirt and leave it at that.
There are in fact few precise descriptions of 'illegal' blades in France. As in many countries, stillettos and similar automatic knives are banned. For the rest, there is a list of characteristics used by customs that define blades that illegal to import. That includes double-edged blades of more than 150 mm, with a substantial hand guard. Basically, bayonets and similar stuff. Most sturdy fixed blades with one cutting edge are not illegal to own or to carry when you have a good excuse, like doing forestry work or working on a farm and so on. Hunting knives and even spears with humongously aggressive blades and telescopic poles are legal when you are a hunter and on a hunt or on your way to and from one (so are pump-action shotguns and heavy-calibre sniper rifles with telescopic sights and silencers, but then, hunters have a very powerful lobby in this country). But even a hunter is not supposed to walk into his local bank carrying a ten-inch bowie (or his gun).
The crux is that any object that can be used as a 'weapon by intent' is illegal, at the discretion of law enforcement officers. So you can take your Laguiole to a French bistro to cut your steak, but it will be confiscated if you are stopped and frisked near a riot. Then, carrying a brick you just liberated from the road is also considered carrying a weapon by intent...
The freedom of law enforcement officers to decide what is acceptable depending on the situation means that on the one hand you can get away with a lot in rural France where the Gendarmerie acts as the police and where they know that people always carry knives to repair fences, prune bushes, cut bread, cheese and sausages and so on (as they do themselves), but that a city policeman may confiscate your knife because has a less relaxed attitude towards bladed items that in his operational environment may often be used as weapons in bad neighborhoods. Or a policeperson may just confiscate it because they hope to add a nice knife to their own collection... (one reason to always officially protest and take it to a judge if it concerns a valuable knife and not some ten-dollar cheapo).
Personally, I have had to check in my Laguiole and two Leathermans at the entry of a Parisian museum and got them back when I left; I have pulled a machete from my car in front of a Gendarme to chop away at bramble bushes that blocked our way into a field where I had landed my hot-air balloon, and the guy did not blink (OK, the passenger of the balloon flight was his mum, but still...). I have also walked into the local offices of the gendarmerie several times on different business while carrying my Laguiole and Leatherman visibly in sheaths on my belt, without any reaction at all. But when I travel to Paris and have to use the metro there, or visit some government building, I don't carry my usual blades, I'll take a mini leatherman squirt and leave it at that.
