Is Paris safe?

Theft is what most visitors to Paris run into, and it clusters on a few lines. Metro Line 1 between Châtelet and Charles de Gaulle-Étoile carries the Louvre and Champs-Élysées crowds through warm air that smells of rubber tyres, and teams of three or four work the doors as the closing buzzer sounds: one blocks, one lifts, and your phone is on the platform at Concorde before the train moves. The RER B from Charles de Gaulle airport is the other hot spot, mostly around Gare du Nord, where jet-lagged arrivals stand wedged against their luggage. Keep your phone in a front pocket or a zipped cross-body bag on both lines. A licensed taxi from the airport is the calmer option after a 10-hour flight: fares from Charles de Gaulle are fixed by law, about €56 to the Right Bank and €65 to the Left Bank at 2025 rates, so refuse anyone in the arrivals hall who walks up with a quote.

Paris street scams are scripted and easy to step around once you know the three main ones. At the foot of Sacré-Coeur in Square Louise Michel, men try to loop a braided thread around your wrist, knot it tight against the skin, then demand €10 to €20; keep your hands in your pockets on those lawns and climb the Rue Foyatier stairs without stopping. Around the Louvre pyramid and the Tuileries, teenagers with clipboards ask you to sign a petition for a deaf charity while a partner goes through your bag. On the Trocadéro esplanade and the Pont d'Iéna near the Eiffel Tower, the three-cup game called bonneteau is rigged, and the cheering winners in the crowd are part of the crew. At all three spots, we'd give a flat 'non, merci' and no eye contact. Any commissariat will take a theft report, the police answer on 17, and travel insurers such as World Nomads tend to ask for that report number.

After dark, the map of Paris narrows a little. The blocks north of Gare du Nord toward La Chapelle and Stalingrad feel rough after about 10pm, as does the pavement under the elevated tracks at Barbès-Rochechouart, where cigarette sellers call out and the stairwells smell of grilled corn and urine. Châtelet-Les Halles is a long, echoing interchange we would not change at after midnight. The Champ de Mars lawns and the Bois de Boulogne are both poorly lit, so leave them before nightfall. Women travelling alone tend to report the Marais, Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Canal Saint-Martin quays as comfortable late, and the hostess bars on Boulevard de Clichy in Pigalle as the place for unwanted attention. The Metro shuts at about 1:15am Sunday to Thursday and about 2:15am on Fridays and Saturdays, so past those times book a G7 taxi or an Uber rather than waiting for a Noctilien night bus. From inside a station, text 31177 or call 3117 to reach RATP and SNCF security, and the SAMU ambulance service answers on 15.

Two things in Paris look more alarming than they are. Soldiers from Opération Sentinelle patrol the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and the big stations in threes with rifles, a legacy of the November 2015 attacks, and bag checks at the Musée d'Orsay or Versailles can add 15 to 20 minutes. Demonstrations usually follow the route from Place de la République to Bastille or Nation, so check the RATP app for closed stations and detour by a few streets. What earns more caution is the Stade de France crowd on the RER B and D after a match in Saint-Denis: a tighter squeeze than either of those, and phones go missing there. Eating alone is easy in Paris: wine bars along Rue Oberkampf and the zinc counters of cafés in the 11th arrondissement seat one diner without a booking, and a small-group walking tour of Montmartre on your first morning tends to produce dinner company. It was 21.9°C and partly cloudy at 7pm on 13 October 2026, warm enough to sit on a terrace on Rue Montorgueil without a jacket.