Paris may be known as the City of Light, but lately, the only lights illuminating some bakeries are the flashing blues of police vehicles. In a region famed for fresh baguettes and flaky pain au chocolat, a new crime wave is putting the squeeze on local bakers—turning their humble shops into prime targets for daring thieves.
Bakeries Under Siege: Not Just Crumbs at Stake
If you think bakeries aren’t exactly Fort Knox when it comes to security, you’re in good company. Over just ten days, Axel Dassonville, baker at “L’Atelier des 2 Frères” in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, experienced back-to-back burglaries. Both times, the script stayed painfully familiar: at the break of dawn, he discovered his storefront forced open and his two automatic cash machines (monnayeurs) viciously torn apart.
“The first time, we told ourselves this happens to every shop. The second time, we truly weren’t prepared,” he recalled, still in disbelief. The damage? Nearly 40,000 euros, including both the stolen takings and material destruction. And he’d only been in business two years.
He wasn’t alone. That same night in Méré, another bakery owner watched, through his surveillance footage, as four men in light-colored puffer jackets and concealed faces broke in, resembling the same gang that struck Dassonville’s bakery. According to Amilton Dos Santos, owner of “Gare O Pain” (no, the irony isn’t lost), the thieves first tried smashing a display window before prying open the rear service door with a crowbar. Their mission? Head straight for the automated cash machines, completely ignoring the traditional till. Their visit lasted all of 30 seconds—a sign, Dos Santos says, that they’d cased the joint in advance.
Automated Cash Machines: A Double-Edged Sword
Why the focus on monnayeurs? Simply put, these automated cash dispensers are a major draw for burglars. Dos Santos was lucky enough to have emptied the cash box the night before, leaving only the daily float. The result: the thieves left with a mere 300 euros.
It’s one of several pieces of advice now urgently distributed by professional baking federations and French authorities:
- Empty automated coin machines every night and leave them open.
- Avoid keeping any cash on-site after hours.
- Never display valuables that might tempt thieves.
These steps have only just become the new normal, as bakery break-ins multiply across the Yvelines, Essonne, and Val-d’Oise areas. The federation of bakers has issued repeated alerts, joined by similar warnings from the local prefecture. And it’s not just isolated incidents: the attacks spike just before and after the holidays, echoing at Vélizy-Villacoublay, Bonnières, Rolleboise, Meulan, Hardricourt, Maule, and Magnanville. Some estimate around thirty professionals have been hit in the department, according to local sources, though officials remain tight-lipped on concrete numbers.
Thieves Getting Bold – and Creative
The modus operandi is brazen, quick, and (dare we say) innovative. While some break-ins take just half a minute, others get even bolder—using battering rams, or rather, actual vehicles to smash through doors. One such “smash-and-grab” hit Morigny-Champigny, near Étampes, where a car was used to more rapidly reach the coveted coin machines at “L’Atelier des Papilles.”
Even reinforced protection isn’t always enough. Fabrice Pottier, a baker in Marcoussis, invested in a metal shutter and reinforced door. Yet he still faced a break-in attempt, which cost him 7,000 euros in repairs—even though the thieves never made it inside. Meanwhile, a colleague wasn’t so lucky: both his bakeries were “visited” within days, with thieves taking four minutes to empty the cash machine.
The Industry Response: New Defenses and Changing Habits
The sudden need for repairs put pressure on distributors of these “cash machines,” who scrambled to provide replacement parts, sometimes cannibalizing new units just to help desperate bakers get back up and running. Christophe Coquelin, who manages Matburo in Yvelines, says his company is developing anti-theft pedestals to stop thieves from pulling out the machines entirely. “The best deterrent is simply not leaving cash inside. No one’s risking jail for 50 or 100 euros,” he notes.
Bakers themselves acknowledge the paradox: while cash sales have plummeted (twenty years ago, 80% of payments were cash; now, it’s the opposite), bakeries are still among the rare few businesses keeping cash at all. The surge in automated machines during the COVID crisis, meant for smoother work, better tracing, and improved hygiene, may have helped prompt this criminal interest—but most bakers still believe these monnayeurs are safer than traditional tills.
In Dassonville’s case? “I’d rather have them break the machine than attack me as I’m leaving with the cash at night,” he admits. Still, he’s considering a rather old-school solution: getting a dog.
Lesson of the day? If you’re in the business of baking, don’t just guard your secret recipe—make sure you guard your cash machine, your doors, and maybe even invest in a four-legged protector. The golden age of easy pickings in Parisian bakeries may soon crumble—one reinforced monnayeur at a time.
