Last week, without any advance notice, the Eiffel Tower, the world’s most visited tourist attraction in the world, besides Notre Dame, locked its tower to the throngs of starry eyes tourists. Mutiny on the tower!
Why? Pure and simple, the employees were fed up(ras le bol) by constant onslaught of pickpockets day and night non stop! This time the pickpockets crossed the line too many times, not only wrecking criminal havoc on tourists but even the employees!
Besides manning our famous lady of iron, the ultra symbol of Paris, tower employees with various jobs from top to bottom, tried to ensure the safety and physical integrity of each visitor. But, apparently the pickpockets had invaded, marked their territories and had taken control!
The last straw was when the pickpockets started to threaten the employees, who were spending most of their time shooing them away or calling the police to little avail. Many reported being followed and accosted by the pickpockets as they tried to return home.
Threats ranged from being beaten up or “worse”. Proclaiming they “knew” each employee’s way back home, they even threatened their spouses and families.
If they succeeded in chasing them away, they reappeared as quickly as roaches on a defiant march back. After repeatedly begging for extra police supervision and support, that always got a meager response, they threw in the towel!
Paris is a pickpocket’s heaven and unfortunately haven. With Paris being the most visited city in the entire world, you have at any given time thousands of tourists running all over this magnificently beautiful city, so there just isn’t enough on the spot police support, which is understandable logistically.
I have seen on many occasions though police on bicycles, horses and walking patrol in the streets and now we are on vigipirate again since the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks, in the metro stations and in general greater numbers.
Yes, town hall has increased police surveillance in tourist hot spots, like the Eiffel tower, and museums, but it never seemed to make much difference or deterrence to these vile and crafty pickpockets who are constantly coming up with new ways to steal and disguise their dirty work.
As a traumatized victim of two pickpocketing experiences here and a “car jacking” in Marseille, your dear blogger is downright paranoid at times about pickpockets. Paris is one the safest places in the world in so far as the very low-level of violent crimes in comparison to American cities. It is for me, just one of the reasons I prefer to stay here.
Things have gotten worse, since Schengen was put in place ,allowing all members of the 26 European countries to go across borders with much ease and without any passport control. Sadly, many Roumanian gypsies and mafia types have taken huge advantage of this cross country ease.
Yes, I have compassion for the Roma population, for the inherent racism they face, even in their home country of Romania, their poverty, their some times forced nomadic lifestyle, but not the unscrupulous ones! Not all gypsy are crooks, but here is Paris the majority of petty crimes are committed by them.
Feeling ostracised in their own country, they have left in droves, hoping to find either a new and more promising beginnings in France. They are wooed by the liberal governmental financial support some are able to obtain and the crooks by promises of heavy gains to be made stealing from the throngs of deep pocket tourists!
Familial clans are tightly controlled from within and many women and children are used as pawns to beg and steal, or face beatings if they return with empty pockets. So they are taught at a very young age the skill of pickpocketing the unwary; residents and tourists alike.
Trust me, they are good and professional in emptying out your pockets and purses of , cash, credit cards, passports,cell phones and anything else they fancy. Rarely caught in the act, leaving their victims totally unsuspecting that they have been stripped of monies, cards and the above, they are long gone before you realise that you no longer have a dime to your name, nor anyway of getting a cent!
Their mode operandi is distract and steal! They have heavily targeted Asians visitors here, due to the popular belief that Asian tourists carry wads of cash in their pockets. Currently, it is said that Chinese tourists in Paris spend more per person , than any other visiting nationalities; so perhaps it is true.
On the Eiffel Tower, the pickpockets disguised themselves as tourists with baseball hats, backpacks and cameras suspended from their neck, seeming intent to listening to their audio guides plugged in their ears. Working in pairs or triples, they bump into you and steal, block entrances, or distract you with all sorts of guises, like dropping things, taking fake selfies next to you, offering to take photos of you, all the while their fellow crook are in split seconds, retrieving your money and belongings!
The Eiffel employees also started to note that they were fighting over territories. Some worked the lines, the elevators, and the first, second or third levels of the tower. When spotted by employees, some of the thieves would retort “hey, why are you bothering us, let us “earn” our living”.
Because all public employees here have the right to strike, for various reasons, and even be paid for it, the decision was made to strike, and an ultimatum was given to the society, who is in charge of running the tower. Either give us the police support we need and do away with the thieves, or else!
With the potential to lose thousands of euros each day it is closed, the syndic gave in to their demands and the tower was reopened the next day. The very same thing happened, last year at the Louvre, again necessitating an employee strike.
A few days after the Eiffel Tower strike, the police announced that they had dismantled a mafia type clan of pickpockets. Composed of seven men and three woman of the same family of gypsies, each were pulling in over 4,000 euros a day, which the majority was being sent back to Romania.
They were arrested in a hotel in the suburbs, where they preferred to stay, which the police said they had dispensed over 100, 000 euros in 2014. They were noted to be surrounded by luxurious trimmings and objects, which they enjoyed flaunted on social medias.
The police discovered that half of them “worked” the Versailles Palace, and the other half the Eiffel Tower. A well planned and well oiled criminal machinery in place that sucked in thousands of euros per day from unsuspecting tourists.
The police said they had been working on this over six months, but I suspect with the strike, they decided to finish up the investigation and arrests quicker that envisioned to not only placate the employees, but the public at large.
All this is good, but whether the criminals will be sent back to Romania to be punished is not known, only perhaps to return at a later date. France has been in the past denounced for rounding up masses of Roma communities and shipping them back to Romania.
Even more unfortunate, is the plain fact that the French justice system is in my opinion, shockingly very lax. Criminals serve pitiful little prison times in comparison to America, especially for murders.
The French public is likewise sick and tired of their justice system as well and blame even more so the current political regime in power, who since being elected in office have allowed even more laxity to occur.
They say there isn’t enough prisons here to house the criminals as the main reason, but I would prefer to let the French comment more on that. So who knows if, how, when or where these newly arrested pickpockets will be punished.
I wanted to end my post with tips of pickpocket prevention, but ended writing so much, that I had to stop and save it for another post to come. So for at least today and the near future the magnificent Eiffel Tower is much safer from having your pockets and purses emptied!
Cherry its so sad when criminals dictate how we must live our lives out in the public. here in the states shoplifting, purse snatching, carjackings has become of a thing of the norm. I used to think it was drug addict supporting there Habit. but a lot of them are making their living doing this. they have gotten quite professional about it and now are running out with big ticket items and nobody sees a thing. and if this is not bad enough home invasions are starting to happen more frequently where tudgs find your door unlocked and come in and tie you up and steal everything you have. no wonder many people are becoming paranoid about going out in public and doing a lot of their shopping online.
Cherry I had no idea that you were a victim of pickpockers until I had read your related blog post the one that I must have missed. that has to be a very traumatizing experience. I have often wondered about your safety after reading some of your more adventurous blogs
looking forward to reading your blog on pickpocket Prevention tips.
Thank you Isham for letting me know what is increasingly happening in the states. When I lived on Gladstone, I had a bike stolen inside my house on Halloween night,then a lawnmower and other things stolen too. I remember being warned not to walk after sunset towards Betty Virginia park and I didn’t out of fear. Here in Paris, it is very safe to walk around the the majority of the city at night.
On another subject my dear friend, I will be thinking of you and praying for you Friday, the day of your back surgery. Hugs
Cherry, a rather timely blog. My 14 y/o grandson is going on a ten day school tour of England and Ireland in about a week. I had attempted to warn him about the potential danger of pickpockets, gypsies and such on his trip . . . . of course kids don’t listen too adults too much, esp. their parents and grandparents too . . . Ha! I sent a copy of your blog to my daughter and gave it to Jordan. Your blog sort of perked up his interest and understanding of the matter.
June and I had given him some spending money and a money belt. It was obvious that he wouldn’t consider wearing a money belt; he obviously thought that wasn’t ‘cool”. But after reading your blog, he decided that it was a good idea . . . . LOL.
It will be interesting to see how his trip turns out. He is a bright, outgoing kid; but a little shy in some ways; with two girl for every boy on the trip, it may be a good experience for him. I think that there are fifty teenagers going on the trip. Fortunately his mother wasn’t able to be a chaperon on the trip. It should be a good experience for him.
I think that your blog article may have helped him to be a little more prudently cautious in his traveling experience.
How wonderful for your grandson to have the opportunity to travel to England and Ireland! Glad my post got his interest, and hope you can send my pickpocket prevention tips to him too, which I will probably publish next Monday.
Of course, it is not just Paris that has this problem, as all major European cities do! Nothing like being distracted by cute girls on his trip, to add to his enjoyment!