The End of Cardboard (paper) Metro/bus tickets!

I wonder how the metro police will check for valid tickets once the paper ones are gone.

Probably spot check Navigos with a portable reader to see that they are activated.

Can't comment specifically on the Paris Metro, but on my recent Italy trip, the Rome metro and Trenitalia are pushing use of the phone app, still have paper tickets as an option, but most use the the app. They look to have spent a good amount of money replacing validation machines that can accept the paper ticket, QR code, or contactless NFC (like the London tube). Basically you can buy a pass, specific to you and specific dates, so no validation, or for individual tickets, scanning the QR code for validation.

My trip made me think about my cell phone use while traveling, it is getting more and more difficult to travel without one, and then needing a data plan while there. I would have been lost (well, literally) without mine, and would have wasted a lot of time buying tickets, figuring out schedules, what bus to take etc.

Electronic processes seem to be more and more the way things are done. Paper money is increasingly being replaced by plastic credit cards, and even those are rung up electronically, with a quick tap (or hover) over the payment device.

Vaccination certification? Electronic device with a QR code for some, although a paper document is being used by many of us, which is puzzling some Europeans asking to see certification.

Bus tickets - electronic method of acquiring, using, and verifying is certain to be the future. And will those buses all be electronic, too, before long?

Pity the poor "Tabac" shopkeepers! First smoking goes into a decades long decline & now the carnet of Metro rickets is gone. The lottery & the newspapers are all that's left.

Just leaving Paris and there were signs all over the stations that the carnet will no longer be sold after October 14, 2021. Not clear if single tickets will still be available.

here's a summary (based on press reporting) on what is happening:

as of 10/14/2021: about 100 stations will stop selling PAPER CARNETS of ten tickets
as of Jan 2022: 176 additional stations will stop selling PAPER CARNETS of ten tickets
as of March 2022: all stations and points of sale will stop selling PAPER CARNETS of ten tickets

you will still be able to buy individual tickets and point-to-point individual tickets

You will still be able to buy a carnet of tickets by purchasing the Navigo Easy (€2, non-nominative), and loading a carnet on it for €14.90.

All the daily, weekly and monthly pass options will remain.

Here is the Le Figaro report that I took this from:
https://www.lefigaro.fr/conso/ratp-la-fin-du-carnet-de-ticket-de-metro-c-est-a-partir-du-14-octobre-20210929

As to this:

I wonder how the metro police will check for valid tickets once the paper ones are gone.

The same way they check subscribers' tickets now - the controlers will use their handheld electronic readers to check the card/pass.

Thank you for this information in this thread. We're traveling to France at the end of the month and will be prepared.

Our last international trip was in October 2019 to Denmark and Sweden. There were a couple of shops in Sweden that wouldn't accept cash payments at all. Also, we were recently in New Orleans and decided to ride the streetcar back to our hotel after a long walk. Because we didn't have exact change, we paid with a $5 bill which was way more than the ticket price. I didn't realize that with an app, I could have easily purchased the tickets.

Point of sale cash purchases will soon be a thing of the past everywhere.