Crime and Punishment

I walked in through the front door from a foray into Carrouf and found my youngest extremely upset. It transpired that his telephone had been snatched out of his hands as he walked along the road and thrown on the floor. A gratuitous act of vandalism. The phone is, unsurprisingly, broken.

The vandal was a boy of about my son's age, unknown to my son, so not from the village, and no prizes for guessing his ethnic origin. The kid ran off, but he picked the wrong target because my son went after him, brought him down and gave him a good beating.

I heartily applauded this action and rang the Police Municipal to report the event. They were as surprised as me because we don't have any dodgy immigrants here, so god knows where this kid sprang from. Anyway, they noted what happened and will be keeping their eyes open. The Police Municipal know all the kids around here as they are often patrolling around the schools and intervening in road and bike safety lessons. It would be great if they could pick him up and frighten the bejesus out of him.

Petit con.

Crime is on the increase in France. Last October, violent attacks increased by 9%, theft went up by 8% and financial infraction by 18%. Delinquency increased by 8% in one month and mobile phone theft is up too. French society is getting rougher, less safe and more violent. The Paris cités are the worst, but nowhere is safe nowadays. Not even my cosy village.

Interestingly, in a recent survey by Nouvelles de France, when asked if they would buy a gun on the black market if they could, two thirds of respondents replied in the affirmative. This corresponds with a survey carried out by Fox News in the US last month where two thirds of respondents said they would be prepared to break the law if guns were outlawed.

In case you're wondering, I replied 'no', but I could change my mind... if it came to it. One thing that is becoming clearer over time is the French state is an unreliable protector of its citizens, Holland inspires no confidence in anyone but a small number of the elite bobo Parisians, and ordinary folk are feeling increasingly insecure.

Anyway, let's not get too depressed. Here's Cyprien to cheer us all up with his own tale of woe about a stolen laptop.

Watch Out, there's a Thief About!

I've been trying to find some statistics on crime in Montpellier. This was before I remembered that they are likely to be completely under-estimated because much petty theft goes unreported. You can read about the increase in home burglaries (up 12.5% in 2011) and muggings (up 33% in 2011) but if you get your bag nicked and returned minus the cash who's going to report that?

This was definitely the case when someone stole from my handbag last Friday. I was sitting in a rather nice pub in Montpellier - le Beehive - my bag down by my feet against a wall, and a shopping bag behind me blocking its exit.

In spite of being in a protected spot, when I got up for a minute or two to look at the menu board a couple of metres away, someone took advantage of my inattention and stole my wallet and my Kindle. S/he also stole some stamps (with vegetables on them); the ones you use to post letters to France, but not the other ones for the rest of Europe.

It's a British pub, so many people there were Anglo-Saxons, and as it wasn't very busy, they were all sitting at tables enjoying their drink and some were eating something tasty from the menu. The waiting staff is mostly British and there's a Dutch woman there too. All very nice and polite, and moving about the pub clearing up and serving.

I was pretty distressed to find my wallet and Kindle nicked. My credit cards were not in my wallet, but my driving licence was, plus car and insurance papers, an old carte de séjour and various other bits and bobs. Everything was there to steal my identity if someone so wanted.

The staff were most concerned, naturally, but as I was still able to pay my bill, the situation didn't get out of hand. I left my number 'just in case the items turned up'.

Funnily enough, they did. I went to pick them up the next morning. The cash had been stolen, as had the stamps. My Kindle is only an e-reader, not a tablet, so of no use to a thief (thankfully!). Both items were found stuffed behind the loo in the ladies. I was relieved to get almost everything back, not least because it meant I didn't have to start on the process of renewing all the paperwork and worry about id theft.

When I got back to the tram station where I'd left my car I saw a bunch of gendarmes. I went up to one and told her what had happened. I asked if it was of interest to them that I report the theft (for the sake of statistics). She shrugged and said I could do what I liked, and I understood they didn't give a toss.

So who knows how much petty theft is going on. I now know that the friend of a friend had had her purse stolen in the same pub, le Beehive, just the previous week. It's a nice pub, but I won't be going back. Not until they sort out the thieving, whoever it turns out to be.