I was thinking of UK experience and policies - but I still can’t see the French Police in any even moderate sized conurbation driving past everyone’s house that was away - and, realistically, what good would it do if they did?
Why, the contract is what matters, even in French law.
We’ve had messages from our local gendarmerie via Panneau Pocket advertising just this. You can sign up either online, via the app or at the station. Just how effective it could possibly be is debatable but I suppose it cant do any harm … unless one of the gendarmes cousins is a burglar 
Certainly good for public relations.
I have the gendarmerie on one side of the Lotissement and the Police Municipal on the other side, both are always out and about. One good thing Aliot did was to get the law posted into nearly every commune in this agglo, some like mine have two outlets.
I haven’t seen a gendarme in our village in living memory, apart from one of my best mates who is the Maire but also a retired G apparently available for recall at any time. As I realised once when hailed at a roundabout in the next village crawling with machine gun wielding military. I realised just before panic took over that he was waving ‘Bonjour’. 