What to do to avoid wasting time and energy if and when…

In April, five months after the police had seized my bicycle and broken my locks, I was “regretfully” informed that they found they were in no way responsible for this (costly for me) degradation of my property as the act was carried out in the name of security (which gives them any-and-every right to do whatever they want?). Originally, I gave up my quest for reimbursement figuring it was too hard to fight City Hall.

However, City Hall did not stop there and for some reason, the machine continued to churn. This prompted me to take up arms again and I can now share my learning experience of how to go about getting compensation for damage to property due to police action. 

At the end of May I got a letter from the Ministère de l’Intérieur et des Outre-Mer. In fact, while the Secretariat général pour l’administration Service des affaires juridiques et du contentieux had refused my quest, it was in fact the Préfecture de police de Paris – Dirction des usagers et des polices administratives – Bureau de la réglementation et de la gestion de l’espace public- Pôle réglementation et affaires juridiques to whom I should have sent my file. I was then invited to write to them.

I had let this sit a while. Just as I was going to address the question, about two months later, I got another letter from the Secretariat général pour l’administration at the Préfecture de Police inviting me to appeal the rejection within two months.

This got my dander up and I started to prepare a file to do so. I called the legal aid number attached to a magazine subscription I have and had a long talk with her. She found that the State was responsible for all damage to my property and suggested I even call the legal aid that comes with my house insurance. I decided to work on it myself for a while and looked up how to write letters of appeal online and found help here and here.

Then lo and behold, a week later I got a letter from the Secrétariat général pour l’administration offering me compensation, the sum of which was equivalent to the price of my two new locks. 

Getting Your Bike Back and Reimbursed for Damages

When police seize your bike for whatever reason, it will be brought to the commissariat of the arrondissement where it had been picked up. The only solution is to go there.

Once there, take pictures of proof of any damage, e.g. broken locks. Then go in to pick up the bicycle. You will be asked to sign the register. Insist, however, to draw up an état des lieux, or a description of the damages. You may have to insist very heavily, and even receive a rejection. Do not leave the commissariat without some written proof of their taking your bike. Refusing to leave, I finally got  a very ambiguous Mention de Service which did not recognize the damages, but could get nothing better (at approximately 10pm). It stated that “supposedly” (selon ses dires) three locks had been broken. Nobody was going to go out with me to check, although it would have been preferable to get a written statement of the damages. 

The next step is to collect every type of proof to defend the fact that you have been mistreated by the French administration, and to what measure: pictures, receipts for damages, proof of the seizure…

Then, take your file to the police department to lodge a complaint. It is illegal for the police to refuse a person’s complaint. If, like for me, they do refuse (I did not know that this was illegal), take a shot at another commissariat, for example the one your home address depends on, and try again.

Once you have established a nice, thick file, send your file registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt, along with a clear, polite explanatory letter of the circumstances, your grievances and a request for compensation to the Préfecture de Police, Service des Affaires Juridiques et du Ceontencieux, Bureau de Contencieux de la Résponsabilité  of the département where the bicycle was seized. If picked up in Paris, the address is 1 bis rue de Lutèce, 75195 Paris Cedex 04. 

Keep the tracking number, watch your mailbox for the acknowledgement receipt, hold on to it very carefully… and wait.

Obviously, in the simple Manichean universe of French administration there are only two possibilities: either they will offer you compensation, or they will refuse.

In the case of a refusal, you will be given two months to appeal. It will be best to get some competent French advice on how to phrase the responsibility of the administration not to damage private property. And again, the full file of documents should be sent along with your request to review the case again.

Should you be lucky and be offered compensation, bravo! This, of course, is not automatic. Be sure to read both sides of the letter and fulfil the requirements scrupulously. This includes signing two copies of an accord indemnitaire to be sent along with bank details and a copy of an ID card. 

Send in all the requested documents, with a polite message that you are responding to their letter. Again, post it registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt.

And I did all that. A little over a week later, I got another letter from the Préfecture de Police. Was this finally my check, although they had asked for bank identification? Of course not. It was one of the copies of my signed agreement to the compensation offered, this time with the signature of the Préfecture. Obviously what they had sent me previously was an unsigned form; the police don’t sign it until after they have our signature, never first. And still I waited for my money. 

Finally, the money arrived in my account a week later. For a process that began in November, a happy ending ten months later in September of the following year.

Of course, the best solution is to avoid having your bicycle seized at all. When I arrive somewhere, I might go all around the block to look for official bicycle racks to attach my bike these days. No lampposts or other railings for me.  

And, what the heck? I have chalked up this traumatic event to another learning experience in France.

Photo of said seized bike and some of the correspondence I’ve received about it.

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