Jules Maigret, or simply Maigret, is a fictional French police detective, a commissaire ("commissioner") of the Paris Brigade Criminelle (Direction Régionale de la Police Judiciaire de Paris:36, Quai des Orfèvres), created by writer Georges Simenon. The character's full name is Jules Amédée François Maigret. 

The character of Maigret was invented by Simenon while drinking in a cafe and imagining a Parisian policeman: "a large powerfully built gentleman...a pipe, a bowler hat, a thick overcoat." Maigret was reputed to be based on Marcel Guillaume, an actual French detective although Simenon himself variously claimed not to remember the inspiration or that Maigret was influenced by Simenon's own father.