Today marked 8 months of being in France! It also marked the third time I was accosted on public transport since being here.
The first was earlier this year (January, February or so) and took place on a bus that I was riding for less than 10 minutes. As I tried to get on, the guy in front claimed I pushed him and then decided to push me back and harass me. All while the bus driver did nothing.
The second was two Sundays ago (if you’ve checked out Episode 3 of The Parisian Pursuit you’ve already heard this story) and happened on the metro on my way to church. I was sitting there with my phone in my hands, earbuds in, when a little teenage punk decided to rip it straight off me and run out the train. Luckily my reflexes kicked in and I managed to barely escape before the doors shut. I basically begged him for the phone back, and as he clearly didn’t expect me to have caught up with him, he ended up giving it back to me. Score.
Since then, I’ve been a little nervous on public transport, which I’ve felt silly about, but I figured I had a good excuse. I mean I survived 7 months of teaching out in the sketch suburb where my school was with absolutely no problems safety wise. And now I’ve had this happen on a perfectly calm train on a quiet Sunday morning?
This morning however definitely validated my paranoia. I got on the train (same one as the incident above) and a guy came over and sat across from me. He started talking to me, but as the train was really loud I wasn’t entirely sure what he was saying. To top it off, I kept having flashbacks to last time, and when he started asking me what station I was getting off at I realized I needed to play dumb. So I pretended I just didn’t understand him because I didn’t speak French (he had been getting peeved due to my lack of information). After a couple stations, another guy came and sat next to me and I started getting really uncomfortable. Eventually, we arrived at the original guy’s stop, his friends called for him to get off, and he left. *RELIEF* The guy next to me says “Do you speak French?” I figured I’d come clean, as he seemed nicer than the last guy, and he explained to me that he had come over to sit next to me in case the guy attacked me. While incredibly thankful for this man and his willingness to help a stranger, it was slightly unnerving that there was even a need (and that I couldn’t just chalk it up to me being paranoid, as an outsider recognized the situation was escalating). Also, keep in mind that there was a mother, her son, and a pilot all sitting on the bench with me who did absolutely nothing (ok, the first two I can understand, but the pilot?)
All this being said, if you ride the metro with me over the next few weeks, prepare for me to be a bit jumpy! And no sneaking up behind me or jumping out from around the corner 
