The French device of care for dangerous psychiatric patients was fixed a long time, because of an administrative and nonlegal organization. But recently, partial evolutions towards a legal system took place, especially under the impulse of European right. The current organization appears unfinished, on standby of European directives. But it constrained French psychiatrists to put up to administrative and legal rules, not always concordant. But contradictions persist with the right of fundamental freedoms, as transcribed in the European legislation. The authors are based on their personal experiences, legal and medical, in various places of care devoted to the dangerous psychiatric patients : ‘unites pour malades difficiles”, ‘USIP”, detention center. They analyze the French legislation and the international (and European) laws, relating to the human rights and conclude that the articulation between care and repression remains an irresolute equation, with regard to the dangerous psychiatric patients.