Safety in France

hello christine
interresting subjet
where do you come from ?

Hi TARENTINI,

I am from the Expat.com Team

We'll hopefully receive interesting (hopefully positive) testimonies here 

Cheers,

Christine

Yes I feel safe when I walk alone day or night. I didn't find any kind of criminality around this spectacular city. Despite all you have to take care cause in every society there is good and bad.
But iam giving paris high rate of stability and safety

Paris - really, really don't feel safe. Whether day or night. Too many attacks and muggings. I work in an international school and every week we have students coming in who have had something stolen or who have been verbally/physically abused etc.
There have been also many instances of people being followed home. Even though it's a big city, compared to London, Berlin and even Istanbul, the levels of crime rate (even if small) are a lot higher.

The question is too broad, Christine.  Certainly there are available statistics to answer the question from an objective point of view as to the frequency, nature, loci and severity of criminality.

Of course one can test the feelings of ex-pats about the situation, and that is  certainly highly subjective, subject to gender and age, subject to where one comes from in one's experience of criminality there and thus–the sense of threat they bring with them. Also I think the capacity to speak relatively fluent French gives confidence. Frankly I FEEL safer here all around that I did living in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Hamburg, to say nothing of the many cities and towns I have visited.

In the 20 years I have lived in France, I've only experienced two violations personally.  My bicycle was stolen when it was tethered after dark in front of the mairie in La Napoule where I live (btw, exactly the same thing happened to me when I lived in Geldermalsen the Netherlands). Secondly I was pickpocketed last year in Paris when huddled with the crowd in the arcade across from the Louvre when it was raining comme vache qui pisse.  Years ago there was one other attempt at pickpocketing that occurred in the Paris Metro.  Just as as I went  through the gate at a crowded time I went to put my ticket in my pocket and to my surprise found another hand there. The hand and the attached body pulled away and ran through the crowd after I gave it squeeze. Nothings  was lost.

Great country, great people, fantastic experience all round
We have lived in Cote a Azur area for 9 years now
Never had any security issues whatsoever at our village, Nice , or around travels throghout France
Obviously try to avoid certain areas in Paris  , but never a threat to our entire family
On a scale of 10 safety is 9.8
Well done France
C Pretorius3@msn.com

Had my bike stolen even though I locked it up. That was very upsetting. Never leave your bike chained outside. Ever. They have here what I like to call bike cemeteries.

I too think this question is too broad. Also, the French don't have a word for 'security' and in English, as I'm sure you know, we talk about both safety and security.

In answer to the question of security, I think this is going to be a national headache for the French police and for Interpol in the very near future if the powers that be are too cowardly to face their immigration problems. It’s not good enough to sit on the fence and pretend it isn’t happening and then complain when it does. It’s not a ‘sensitive’ subject, it’s a subject that’s knocking on the door waiting for someone will balls to answer it.

Let me first state that France is a GREAT country to be unemployed and also to come from an ex-French colony in north Africa with no skills. I'm not denying that the UK has its own problems regarding immigration (just not so extreme as with the north Africans here), but the difference is we don’t encourage the uneducated to arrive on our doorstep. Expatriates – all, whichever colour or creed, should contribute to the host economy.

So, I'm not talking about those who arrive in France legitimately or those who have a skill to offer. I’m talking about people obtaining French nationality and immediately claiming dole for their entire family. I think both the UK and France could learn from the Australian Government’s policy on immigration and their rules about obtaining nationality.

Well, yes there is a link. If you're allowing unskilled people into country and then offer them nationality which isn’t that difficult here based on people who have applied, you’re going to have to adjust your unemployment figures and your birth rates. You’re also going to have to accept that you are increasing the RISK of importing terrorism. I’m not saying that all terrorists come from north Africa or that all are unskilled or even that 10% are bad people. What I am trying to say is that, statistically, jihadists are a minority; and they don’t tend to come from rich families, but rather the poor, uneducated and unskilled ones; and where France is concerned, they’re going to come from  poor north Africa, not from the rich Gulf countries [I consider bin Laden statistical anomoly and I don't deny that jihadism can also be home grown].

Let’s talk about ‘social order’. This is the first country I’ve lived in (out of 17) where I’ve actually been told, the police station (Paris) ‘closes’ at midnight. If you split the people who are supposed to uphold social order, you risk public safety because it’s easy for the two of them to ‘pass the buck’ or claim miscommunication. There are no 'bobbies' on the beat here and Interpol appears reactive rather than proactive.

In summary, France is a fantastic breeding ground for jihadism. No interference, no monitoring, no cameras. No-one cares. It’s always someone else’s problem. French politicians need to step up to the plate and adress the real problems of security and immigration instead of pussyfooting around under the guise that it’s not a politically correct subject.

i,

We would like to talk about a sensitive but important topic: do you feel safe in France?

How would you define the level of safety in the country?

Can you walk safely during the day and at night without any fear?

Do you think there is a high rate of criminality, social problems or tensions?

Share with us your insight on safety in France and in the city you live in.

Thank you in advance, Christine

     If criminals want to do smth there is nothig to stop them in any country.  Countries differ by climate incl public    cone, life level, food traditions etc but not by criminal safety.

I think the further away you are from a large city, the more safe you're going to feel. It's therefore not surprising that you feel safe in Vence, my friend. I live in the fourth largest city in France and it's still VERY small (less than 2mn). However, I would expect a significant rise in crime in cities larger than 3 million such as Paris and Marseille. Unlike the UK, France has a problem with its connurbations. As a rule, I far less safe in French connurbations than I do in the city centres.
Sadly, there seems to be a non-interventionist policy here for people in trouble - despite the fact that they have a 'good Samaritan' law. I don't know any other country when helping others has to be made into a law. It's quite bizarre to me.

I have to agree with Serif that it very much depends on where you live. I live in a small town in southwestern France, and I've never felt unsafe or had my security threatened. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that there were a couple times after truly exhausting days that I left the key to my car inside the ignition for a couple hours before realizing it, and not a thing happened.

Cannot, however, say the same about when I lived in Paris as a student, especially as a woman with very pale skin and blonde hair. I was constantly singled out for harassment on the streets. There wasn't a single day that I went outside and didn't get harassed, and more often than not it happened multiple times in a day. I had men follow me to slap my ass, cat call me (usually starting out by calling me princess or snow white. but when I wouldn't respond, I was called a whore), I had men follow me through the metro system, had a man masturbate on me in the metro .... the list goes on. You could not pay me enough to endure that again. And the police don't even take it seriously. I got attacked in a friend's apartment building, and when we called the police, I was told it was my fault for being blond and wearing a low-cut shirt, which I started writing, justifying my clothing choices, but eff that.

I doubt I'd have to deal with that level of harassment now, as I'm no longer a hot 20 year old, but it definitely soured my impression of Paris and really made me never want to go back.

Goodness me, Julia. What a story!

I have to say that I too had some rather bad experiences in Paris to the extent that I was thinkng of importing pepper spray which I understand is illegal here.

I'm a 50+ year old woman and men would come on to me on the metro. I do find French men rather lewd compared to men in the other 11 countries I've lived in and another 11 I've travelled to for work. I mean, c'mon. 50+ year olds are surely not an easy prey for a predator.

Yeah, pepper spray is illegal here, and a good thing for the men, because I think about half of them would end up on their knees, crying their eyes out! It is ridiculous how they feel completely free to harass women, and people always just shrug and say, "that's how it is." I never ever experienced the level of cat calling in the US that I have here. Although Italy might be worse. I remember visiting Venice with other exchange students, and an Italian man actually followed a friend from the train station all the way back to Paris.

I know a friend of mine who used to be a French teacher with me back in the US told me that she spent time in Paris when she was hugely pregnant, in her mid-30s, and even then she got harassed. I guess by men who have a pregnancy fetish. You can't win, it seems.

Yes, it's strange that their behaviour seems to be peculiarly a French thing. My theory is they do what they think they can get away with. I used the word, 'lewd' with prejudice. The definition is: inclined to lust or lechery. Lascivious by nature.

Can't comment on Italians without upsetting some PC reader but I certainly place the two 'types' into the same basket. Suffice it to say that after 20 years abroad - some of which were spent in war zones - France is the first country I've felt threatened in. I do feel comforted when I see the police out in force in the city centre. However, they can't be everywhere. The onus is on us to take sensible precautions to reduce risk and exposure as much as possible, e.g. take a taxi home if it's near midnight on the basis that a 50 euro taxi fare means nothing if you're dead or raped. Sad, but true!