Speaking French
How to report a theft to the police, in French
If you are in the chair right now
On m'a volé mon sac. Je voudrais porter plainte.
My bag has been stolen. I'd like to file a report.
If that gets brushed off
C'était il y a une heure, dans le métro. Il y avait mon téléphone, mon portefeuille et mes clés.
It was an hour ago, on the metro. My phone, my wallet and my keys were in it.
«On» is the culprit — French pins the theft on nobody in particular, so you never need a passive. Porter plainte is the fixed phrase for the formal report, and the récépissé they give you afterwards is what your insurer will ask for.
Nobody plans for this, and it arrives at the worst possible moment for building a sentence: you are rattled, your phone is gone, and the officer needs specifics before anything can happen. It is worth having the first line ready before you ever need it.
If you need more than one line
neutral
On m'a volé mon portefeuille.
My wallet has been stolen. Swap in: mon téléphone, mon sac à dos, mon passeport.
neutral
Je voudrais porter plainte.
I'd like to file a complaint. The fixed phrase — «déclarer un vol» is understood, but porter plainte is the act with a form behind it.
neutral
C'était ce matin, près de la gare.
It was this morning, near the station.
firmest
Il me faudrait un récépissé pour l'assurance.
I'll need a receipt for the insurance. The reason you came, and worth saying out loud.
Two things worth knowing
This is the one conversation you will have while too rattled to conjugate.
Une plainte is not une main courante
French police stations file two different things. Une plainte opens a case that can be investigated and produces the récépissé your insurance wants; une main courante merely records that you said something happened, and leads nowhere. For a theft, the phrase is porter plainte — if you are offered the other one, you are being offered less.
«On» does the accusing for you
English needs a passive to avoid naming a thief — my bag was stolen. French just says «on m'a volé mon sac»: someone-or-other stole my bag. One pronoun absorbs the entire mystery of who did it, which is exactly right for a form that will never find out. It is also the natural spoken register — no French speaker reaches for a passive here.
What Louis actually said
What you have to get done
- Say what was taken and where it happened
- Explain what the bag looked like and what was inside
- Give details about when things occurred
Louis
Take your time. Tell me what happened.
You
Yes… my bag was stolen in front of the station, about twenty minutes ago.
Louis
I understand, this matters; take your time and tell me where your bag was and what was in it.
You
Yes, of course. It was a black canvas backpack with a small tear on the front pocket; it contained my wallet, my keys, my phone and my ID papers.
Louis
Thank you, I've noted the description and the contents; we'll register your statement, and then you can quickly report your papers and your phone.
The whole conversation, unedited
A real run in the app, nothing scripted on the officer's side. The transcript above is taken from this recording, and the objectives tick off on screen as they are met.
Turn sound on to hear it.
Now say it yourself
Reading that is not the same as producing it with someone waiting, which is the entire difficulty. You can have this exact conversation in the app: Louis is a third of the way through, and you have three things to get done.
It is free, it takes about a minute to start, and the first attempt is allowed to be terrible.
Practise this conversation
