[behringer]

Well I don't know how France works but in the US, no the government doesn't need to authorize this. The police are required to follow the law just like everybody else. A judge could grant some sort of ex-parte legal judgement making an action legal. The police here just said "yeah we don't care." The article says the prosecutors gave the go ahead, my guess is that they said "Yeah we got all the evidence we need, shut her down" and that's what happened.