My bike was stolen in Grenoble — what do I do?

Your bike is gone. Here is what to do, in order. It takes about half an hour in total, and the first two steps are worth doing today.

If you have recently moved to France, some of this will be unfamiliar. France has a national bike registry and a legal marking requirement, and most people who arrive here have never been told either exists. The French words below are the ones you will need to say out loud or type into a form, so they are kept in French throughout and explained once.

Right now, before you leave

• Take photographs of the spot, and of the lock if it is still there — cut, forced, or closed and undamaged. You will want these for the police and the insurer.
• Write down the exact time and address.
• Look for a camera covering the spot: a shop, a building entrance, a car park, a tram stop. Note which one. Footage is often overwritten within days, and it is the police report that lets anyone request it in time.
• Walk a 100-metre circle. Bikes that turn out to be hard to sell are sometimes dumped or re-locked a street away.

1. Declare the theft to your marking operator

If your bike has a number engraved on the frame, this is the most useful step and the one almost nobody knows about. Do it first: it is free and takes two minutes.

Since 2021 every bike sold by a professional in France carries a unique engraved identifier, registered in the FNUCI (Fichier national unique des cycles identifiés — the national register of identified cycles). Declaring your bike stolen flips its status in that register to volé (stolen). The police nationale, the gendarmerie, customs and the municipal police all check it when they come across an unclaimed bike.

This is done through your marking operator, not the police. The two are completely independent: filing a police report does not change your bike's status in the FNUCI, and declaring it to your operator is not a police report. You need to do both.

With Bicycode, the most common operator: log in to your Garage à vélos at moncompte.bicycode.eu, open your bike's page, then "Statut du vélo" → "Déclarer le vol ou la perte".

If your bike was marked by someone else, the operator's name is normally engraved next to the number. The approved operators are Bicycode, Auvray, Décathlon, Starway, Euro Identification (Recobike), Malinéo (Paravol), Manufacture française du cycle, Moustache Bikes, T-SUR and Velopass.

Once declared, anyone can check that your bike is registered as stolen by entering its identifier at apic-asso.com. That is what makes it hard to resell, and it is the whole point of the register.

2. File a plainte

A plainte is a formal criminal complaint. This is the word to use — not "police report", not "declaration". Filing one is free, it is your right, and you do not need to be French or a resident to do it.

You can now do it entirely online, without going anywhere. Since October 2024 the online service covers atteintes aux biens (offences against property) where the offender is unknown, which is exactly a stolen bike:

plainte-en-ligne.masecurite.interieur.gouv.fr

Depending on what you enter, an officer may call you back to complete your statement. Note that the service is in French — if you are not confident, it is a good reason to go in person instead and bring someone with you.

In person, you can walk into any commissariat (a national police station, in towns and cities) or any brigade de gendarmerie (the equivalent in smaller towns and rural areas). It does not have to be the one nearest the theft, and it does not have to be in the same city.

You are automatically given a récépissé — a receipt proving you filed — at the end of your statement. Keep it: your insurer will ask for it. The procès-verbal, the written text of your statement, is only handed over on request. Ask for it.

What separates a useful plainte from a line in a database: the marking number, the purchase invoice, the serial number if it is still legible, and your photographs. Without an identifier, a recovered bike cannot be returned to you even when the police are looking straight at it.

You legally have six years to file — theft is a délit — but do it within the week, because your insurer gives you two days.

3. Tell your insurer — you may already be covered

Most people skip this because they assume a bike is not covered. It often is, through the home insurance you already have. In France that is assurance habitation, and if you rent a flat you are legally required to have it, so you almost certainly do.

Be realistic about what it covers:

• Stolen from inside your home or a locked dependency — cellar (cave), garage, storage box, shed: usually covered, but normally only if there was a break-in (effraction).
• Stolen in the street: covered only if your policy includes the "vol à l'extérieur" extension (theft away from home). This is not included by default.

The deadline is short: two working days (jours ouvrés) from when you find out about the theft, under article L113-2 of the code des assurances. The récépissé from your plainte is almost always required.

Open your policy document and search it for the words vol à l'extérieur before deciding you are not covered. Student and first-time renter policies sometimes include it without making a point of it.

4. Watch the listings yourself

Nobody else is going to. Check Leboncoin, Vinted and Facebook Marketplace, and weekend flea markets (brocantes). Search on the brand, model and colour, and widen the search to the whole region — a bike taken in Grenoble gets sold in Lyon.

If you think you have found your bike: do not contact the seller, do not go to meet them, and do not post about it publicly. Screenshot the listing, save the link, and pass it to the police service that took your plainte.

This is not excessive caution. You have no legal right to take the bike back yourself, the person selling it is not necessarily the person who stole it, and a public accusation rebounds onto whoever makes it very quickly. Making the connection is the police's job. Yours ends at handing them the link.

Report the theft here

This does not replace any of the steps above, and it will not bring your bike back. What it does is show where, when and how bikes disappear in Grenoble — which nobody currently publishes.

It is anonymous, it takes under 90 seconds, and there is no account to create and no email address to leave.

Report a theft →

Getting a bike marked, in Grenoble

If your bike was not marked, you have just found out why it matters. For the next one — or for the one you still have:

Mvélo+ (formerly Métrovélo) is one of the only approved operators in the Isère. Agence de la Gare, 1 place de la Gare, 38000 Grenoble. €10, Monday to Friday, 8.30am–3.30pm, no appointment needed. Bring the bike, photo ID, and the invoice if it is new. Marking is not possible on carbon or titanium frames.

The ADTC also offers it, at the MNEI, 5 place Bir Hakeim, 38000 Grenoble.

Marking has been compulsory since 2021 for bikes sold by a professional: new bikes since 1 January 2021, second-hand since 1 July 2021. Children's bikes with wheels of 40.64 cm or less are exempt.

If you are replacing the bike second-hand, read how to check it isn't stolen first.