Why Paris is trying to outlaw oversized luggage from the metro

Telegraph

29-06-2025

It all started with a plant.
A strelitzia, standing at a proud 130cm tall, was being carried home by a young journalist on the Paris metro, when – deeming the plant obstructive – a ticket controller for the RATP presented the journalist with a €150 (£128) fine (twice the value of the plant), and the story went viral.
Following plant-gate, tourists and locals alike took to social media to protest the RATP's seemingly overzealous luggage rules, which stated that suitcases taken on the metro, RER and funicular in Paris should be smaller than 75cm in all dimensions. For context, that's smaller than what's permitted on most of France's trains, including InOui and Trenitalia, and significantly smaller than the checked baggage size allowed for airlines, including Ryanair, which allows suitcases up to 120cm in diameter.
In Lyon, my home city, I've successfully transported both a bookshelf and a pizza oven on the metro at rush hour (the only complications having been getting them through the ticket barrier without getting stuck), so I was doubtful that anyone would actually enforce the excess baggage rule in Paris. Nevertheless, I was keen to see if things had changed in light of recent events.
I refrained from taking my bookshelf this time, contenting myself instead with a large hiking backpack and an even larger suitcase. My partner and I were travelling back to the UK via Paris with a crate of wine to give to friends and family members, so it was the perfect opportunity. Between two, a big suitcase and hiking backpack is a pretty reasonable amount of luggage – but for the purpose of the experiment, I'd decided to lug all of it through both the metro and RER myself.
It was a hot day – 35 degrees Celsius – so my partner had no complaints about crossing Paris unencumbered as I sweated through barriers and up and down escalators. He remained guilt-ridden throughout, however, walking five paces behind me and keeping up a mournful refrain of 'are you sure I can't help with the bags?' in an attempt to dissuade the critical looks of passing Parisians.
Compared to what other people had brought with them, I was travelling light. Indeed, compared to what my mum brings with her when she visits me, I was travelling even lighter – and she's never received a fine. Some people had suitcases large enough to hide several bodies – not an uncommon sight in Paris, particularly as, for non-European travellers, Paris is often the first or last stop on a multi-month odyssey. I was reasonably confident that no-one was going to hassle me for my cumbersome luggage.
There's an Instagram account (@lesgensdanslemetro_) with more than half a million followers dedicated to the weird and wonderful stuff people spot on Paris's metro, and anything flies. Farmyard animals (chickens, ducks, a sheep on a leash) have featured recently, alongside chairs, beanbags and even an entire DJ mixer deck. I'd probably have stood out more if I'd been travelling with no luggage at all.
I took a couple of different metro lines and the RER, and as I'd suspected, no-one batted an eyelid at my luggage, and I remained unhindered by transport police throughout. But a few weeks earlier, the story might have been quite different. In typical Parisian style, my fellow commuters had not taken kindly to the rumoured crackdown. After the plant debacle, people took to social media to mock the RATP for their lack of flexibility. 'Did you know that the foundations of the metro are built with confiscated suitcases over 70cm high?' quipped one user on X.
Not long after the incident, the RATP rescinded the fine, and just a week later, they also deleted all mention of specific luggage dimensions from their website. Now, they simply state that you should be able to carry your luggage yourself, and that it shouldn't hinder others.
Other restrictions do, however, include not taking non-folding bikes on the metro, and avoiding rush hours with non-folding bikes on the RER, as well as not transporting furniture or household appliances (it looks like I got lucky with the bookshelf), and the rather nebulous 'no suitcases too voluminous for one person'.
When contacted for comment, a spokesman for the RATP told me that 'the RATP does not impose any specific dimensions on suitcases, and no-one has ever been fined for this reason'.
So panic over, it seems. If the Paris metro did, even for a moment, think it was going to stop Parisians and tourists alike taking everything but the kitchen sink on their journeys, they were much mistaken.