> In France, a bag in a public place is deemed to be a bomb and the military has to come, secure the area and destroy it. That's obviously not true. If it was

> In France, a bag in a public place is deemed to be a bomb and the military has to come, secure the area and destroy it. That's obviously not true. If it was the case, the Paris subway would forever be stopped. What is true is that in France when someone reports an abandoned bag in a public place in the main cities, it will systematically be considered as suspect. It means that someone will first go visually inspect it. If it is deemed to present a risk, a detection dog will be brought. Then, if the detection dog smells something, it will be safely handled by the police bomb disposal unit. Thankfully - it turns a half an hour top operation into a significantly longer one - it is very rare to need to destroy a bag. Also it is absolutely not illegal to check a lost wallet (or a lost bag actually) in France.