**From The Telegraph’s Hannah Meltzer, Destination Expert:**
It was an idyllic night a few summers ago. I had spent the evening with friends on the banks of the Seine, sharing a bottle of rosé in the balmy Paris heat. I unchained my bike, hopped on, and started to make my way home.
As I approached the huge courtyard in front of the Notre-Dame, I gazed up at the twin medieval towers, thinking how lucky I was to have this world-famous monument all to myself.
I was then shaken from my reverie by a sudden movement under my front wheel, and the brief but unmistakable feel of clammy fur.
I had skimmed a rat, which had then leapt upwards and brushed against my ankle before scurrying off into the night. I let out a yelp, looked up, and realised I was cycling across a moving carpet of rodents enjoying a late-night summer aperitif of their own.
With this memory in mind, I wasn’t shocked to see a TikTok video by a young man named Gray Davis doing the rounds last week. “Why didn’t anyone tell me that Paris is literally the most infested rat place you’ll ever go?!” he exclaimed.
Whether Paris is indeed the planet’s “most infested rat place” is difficult to judge. Tourists can expect to spot them. In the summer months especially, they can be seen (and heard) on the Champ de Mars near the Eiffel Tower and in the Tuileries Gardens by the Louvre.
Paris has been cited as the fourth most rat-ridden city in the world, though the claims may be spurious, based more on marketing articles compiled by pest-control companies. According to specialists, figures can be tricky to calculate with any certainty.
And the rat population of Paris long predates TikTok. The creatures were to blame for deadly bouts of bubonic plague in the Middle Ages, and during the Prussian siege of Paris in 1870, rats were killed and eaten when the city ran out of meat. More recently, its rodents were anthropomorphised in Ratatouille, the Disney blockbuster that tells the story of Remy, a rat with a passion for gourmet cookery.
But there was certainly recognition that the problem has grown. A 2020 estimate suggested the rat population in Paris may number more than four million, and city authorities launched a new rodent control plan in 2017 in response to public pressure.
The approach has seen the use of traps and poison as well as information campaigns discouraging food waste and litter. Some traditional bins in public gardens and communal bins in apartment buildings have also been replaced by more rat-proof models.
Last year, a study was launched in collaboration with the prestigious Pasteur Institute to monitor the vermin, better understand their true number and where they dwell.
For further inspiration, Paris might look to New York, where Eric Adams said that tackling its own rat population is one of his priorities. Indeed, the mayor appointed a “rat czar”, a former teacher named Kathleen Corradi. “You’ll be seeing a lot of me and a lot less rats,” she said upon her appointment in April.
With Paris gearing up to host next year’s Olympic Games, it is facing more scrutiny than ever – so viral videos featuring gangs of rats are not ideal.
Anne Hidalgo, the city’s socialist mayor, has already faced criticism from some quarters for her pre-Olympics overhaul of the transport network, part of a plan to turn Paris into the greenest city in Europe by 2030. Measures include lower speed limits for cars, hundreds of miles of new cycle lanes and the pedestrianisation of many roads (including, eventually, the Champs-Elysees).
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**From The Telegraph’s Hannah Meltzer, Destination Expert:**
It was an idyllic night a few summers ago. I had spent the evening with friends on the banks of the Seine, sharing a bottle of rosé in the balmy Paris heat. I unchained my bike, hopped on, and started to make my way home.
As I approached the huge courtyard in front of the Notre-Dame, I gazed up at the twin medieval towers, thinking how lucky I was to have this world-famous monument all to myself.
I was then shaken from my reverie by a sudden movement under my front wheel, and the brief but unmistakable feel of clammy fur.
I had skimmed a rat, which had then leapt upwards and brushed against my ankle before scurrying off into the night. I let out a yelp, looked up, and realised I was cycling across a moving carpet of rodents enjoying a late-night summer aperitif of their own.
With this memory in mind, I wasn’t shocked to see a TikTok video by a young man named Gray Davis doing the rounds last week. “Why didn’t anyone tell me that Paris is literally the most infested rat place you’ll ever go?!” he exclaimed.
Whether Paris is indeed the planet’s “most infested rat place” is difficult to judge. Tourists can expect to spot them. In the summer months especially, they can be seen (and heard) on the Champ de Mars near the Eiffel Tower and in the Tuileries Gardens by the Louvre.
Paris has been cited as the fourth most rat-ridden city in the world, though the claims may be spurious, based more on marketing articles compiled by pest-control companies. According to specialists, figures can be tricky to calculate with any certainty.
And the rat population of Paris long predates TikTok. The creatures were to blame for deadly bouts of bubonic plague in the Middle Ages, and during the Prussian siege of Paris in 1870, rats were killed and eaten when the city ran out of meat. More recently, its rodents were anthropomorphised in Ratatouille, the Disney blockbuster that tells the story of Remy, a rat with a passion for gourmet cookery.
But there was certainly recognition that the problem has grown. A 2020 estimate suggested the rat population in Paris may number more than four million, and city authorities launched a new rodent control plan in 2017 in response to public pressure.
The approach has seen the use of traps and poison as well as information campaigns discouraging food waste and litter. Some traditional bins in public gardens and communal bins in apartment buildings have also been replaced by more rat-proof models.
Last year, a study was launched in collaboration with the prestigious Pasteur Institute to monitor the vermin, better understand their true number and where they dwell.
For further inspiration, Paris might look to New York, where Eric Adams said that tackling its own rat population is one of his priorities. Indeed, the mayor appointed a “rat czar”, a former teacher named Kathleen Corradi. “You’ll be seeing a lot of me and a lot less rats,” she said upon her appointment in April.
With Paris gearing up to host next year’s Olympic Games, it is facing more scrutiny than ever – so viral videos featuring gangs of rats are not ideal.
Anne Hidalgo, the city’s socialist mayor, has already faced criticism from some quarters for her pre-Olympics overhaul of the transport network, part of a plan to turn Paris into the greenest city in Europe by 2030. Measures include lower speed limits for cars, hundreds of miles of new cycle lanes and the pedestrianisation of many roads (including, eventually, the Champs-Elysees).
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/paris-rat-problem-mayor-anne-hidalgo-climate-change-tourism/
I think more should be given a chance in fine dining!
France is good to rats. Please keep it up.
Rats are humanity’s true best friends. Yes-yes.