Due to confinement, the year 2020 had been calm in terms of incivility in public transport. It didn’t take long for the thugs to get back to work.
Every day in 2021, no less than 334 victims have been identified, i.e. a total of 122,000 acts of crime in 2021 on the French public transport network (+4% vs 2020). These figures relating to violence in public transport, compiled by the ministerial statistical service for internal security (SSMSI), also highlight the evolution of attacks by city from one year to another.
Villeurbanne, Lyon and Saint-Etienne mark a strong increase
If Paris logically occupies the first place of the podium in number of victims, we will however note a negative evolution of the acts between 2020 and 2021 (-5%). On the other hand, Villeurbanne saw the number of victims of theft and violence in public transport explode by + 53% over the year 2021: it is she who records the worst French performance.
Just behind is the city of Lyon, which obtains the second worst score (+45%). Sytral Mobilités, the authority that organizes mobility in the Lyon area, responded to our colleagues from Figaro by highlighting major investments in 2021 which would have reduced crime by 30% in the first half of 2022.
Third city with the strongest growth in crime: Saint-Etienne. In this ranking of cities according to the facts of delinquency, three cities have seen a marked improvement compared to 2020: Grenoble, La Courneuve and Rennes have seen the number of victims drop significantly.
Number of victims per city in 2021:
- Paris : 52 204
- Lyon : 9 655
- Marseille : 3 169
- Montpellier : 2 510
- Toulouse : 2 408
- Bordeaux : 2 091
- St. Denis: 2,074
- Nantes: 1,983
- Nice : 1 474
- Lille : 1 323
Below, the detail by municipality.
Number of victims by city in 2021 © SSMSI
23 victims of theft and violence per million journeys in Île-de-France
In its press release, the SSMSI certainly specifies that there is an increase in victims of theft and violence in public transport in 2021 (+4%), but that this figure remains at “a level always lower than the number of victims before the COVID-19 pandemic”. In addition, “thefts without violence constitute the most characteristic attack of crime in public transport: they represent 79% of the victims of thefts and violence in public transport, and 17% of thefts without violence committed in public transport. France take place in public transport”.
In 2021, Île-de-France is doing quite well. Between the slight decrease in the number of recorded victims (‑3%) and the increase in public transport use, the police and national gendarmerie recorded an average of 23 victims of theft and violence per million journeys in 2021 compared to 29 in 2020. This represents a level similar to that recorded in 2019, before the pandemic.
