Fare dodgers take Paris Métro for a ride with insurance pots against fines

The Paris Métro system is one of the most high-tech in the world but it is proving no match for fare dodgers who are beating it with a wheeze from the 17th century. Enterprising free-riders are paying into low-cost insurance funds that reimburse their fines if they are caught without tickets.

The dodgers draw on the method invented by Lorenzo de Tonti, a Neapolitan banker who advised King Louis XIV about raising money for his wars. Everyone contributes to a pot and members take turns to draw on the proceeds. The self-styled mutuelles des fraudeurs, usually bands of friends, colleagues or students, remain small-scale but the RATP, the Paris transit authority, is losing an estimated €80 million (£70 million) a year to those who leap the turnstiles.

The mutuelles, of which there are said to be more than a dozen, depict themselves as radical leftists or libertarians who are fighting for free public transport. “We all pay €7 a month to a common fund which is used to refund members who are fined,” Frédéric, a 22-year-old student, said. “At the end of the year there is only about €3 left in the fund.”



Michel, another student, explained that the mutuals were part of a combat for social justice. “It’s unfair that people who live in the suburbs have to pay more for their transport than Parisians in the centre, who are richer.” Delphine, another member, said: “Transport should be a free public service like health and schools.”

Campaign groups, with subversive names such as PiRATP (a pun on RATP), give advice on such matters as avoiding the favourite haunts of ticket inspectors and how to set up funds. The main point is to keep the groups small — with about a dozen members — because they depend on trust and secrecy. So far none have run into trouble with the police.

Fraudsters get away because the Métro has relatively few staff, compared with the London Underground. Dodgers are only caught if they run into one of the roving teams of inspectors. There are 968 inspectors on the whole Métro, tram and bus system. Although they often wear plain clothes and hide around the corner, this is not enough to deter fraudsters.