Bonjour RATP

Super helpful to navigate public transit in Paris!

If you travel into Paris as an American, avoid the subway and bus system and the Navico card usage. They’ve intentionally made the system, when translated to English, fault and not provide the indicated service. I purchased 10 tickets at a kiosk. I charged all 10 with additional trips. Then we went to the entryway from the louvre to travel into the city. At the entry, gates were all open, not working as they should. We placed all our 10 cards onto the indicated area and went inside. Approx 10 feet inside, a transit person stopped us and scanned our tickets. Telling me that none, NOT ONE!, of the tickets had value. In addition I was being charge $70 euro each as a penalty. I had receipts for all the charged transit cards and the trips purchased. This did not matter. She would not allow us to pass at all. She fined us and threatened us with arrest if we continued to object. She indicated “Americans” twice in our conversation as uncooperative. I asked for a supervisor and was rejected. And if I didn’t pay onsite she treated to confiscation of my passport. Not once did any of the other transit persons check anyone else coming through. They had three others posted at this location. This was an outrageous event. Totally offensive as there was no common sense used. I have tried to reach out to support or a supervisor but there does not seem to be a system to address this. Looks like it is typical.