Wherever possible, choose bank cashpoints protected by a door which limits access to one person at a time. Keep a note of the numbers of your traveller’s cheques and credit cards separately. Hotels and apartments often provide safe boxes, either in the room or at reception - use them!

What should you do if you are assaulted?

If you are the victim of an assault or an infraction, day or night, go to any police station; they will take down the information concerning your complaint.

• If you have been assaulted, a telephone alert is made from the “arrondissement” operations coordination bureau so that all personnel present in the designated area are informed immediately as to the suspect(s). An inquiry is conducted through evidence gathered from witnesses and is studied together with similar facts in other incidents.

• If you have been robbed, you are taken to the SARIJ (the service responsible for reception, research and judicial investigation) for the “arrondissement”; the civil servant who receives you will immediately prepare the report on the spot. Identification of the perpetrator owing to an automated fingerprint file is made possible in the event of traces left of imprints.

The operations coordination bureau circulates the information within the service’s operational units.

The personnel present orient their rounds and patrols in the designated area of the events having taken place, such that from the next day those responsible for the investigations conduct an inquiry in the neighbourhood in the same time frame as the break-in.

In any event you will be informed as to the follow-up to your complaint, by telephone, by mail or directly by the neighbourhood’s police officers.

Source : Paris Police Prefecture

In case of loss or theft of credit cards and chequebooks, call the following numbers:

Medico-legal services

You may wish to register a formal complaint if you are victim of mugging, and any injuries can be medically certified, every day, 24 hours a day, at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital.