Although the Paris Olympics are a celebration of socializing and mingling, city officials want visitors to avoid encountering the capital’s notoriously hairy residents.
As humorously portrayed in the hit animated film “Ratatouille,” the abundant rat population in the French capital is no joke to the city’s residents — and could be an embarrassment, as the focus of the Olympics is on Paris.
“All Olympic venues and ceremony areas were analysed for rats before the Games,” deputy mayor Anne-Claire Boex, who is responsible for public health, told AFP in an interview.
In addition to ordering deep cleanings to remove food scraps that might entice rats to emerge from their underground lairs, the mayor’s rodent experts also worked to seal off exits from sewers surrounding the sites.
“Wherever there were a lot of rats, we put out traps before the Games,” Boks said, adding that both mechanical traps and chemical solutions were used to reduce the rat population.
The park behind the Eiffel Tower, where beach volleyball is held, and the Louvre Gardens, where the Olympic cauldron is lit, are popular picnic spots – and were formerly infested with rats.
“Ultimately, nobody should aim to exterminate Paris’ rats, and they are useful in maintaining the sewers,” he said. “The point is that they should stay in the sewers.”
To clean
Paris’s insects have been a major theme in French literature, from “Les Miserables” to “The Phantom of the Opera,” and often feature in contemporary debates about sanitation in the French capital.
Current Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a socialist who relies on the support of the Greens, is often accused by her conservative critics of failing to keep the capital free from trash, rats and dog feces.
In 2021 a viral social media campaign called #SaccageParis (#TrashedParis) led to residents posting photos of overflowing rubbish bins, poorly maintained street furniture or overgrown green spaces, tarnishing the city’s established reputation for beauty.
In response to the criticism the city unveiled a “Manifesto for Beauty”.
Ahead of the Olympics, its main streets and squares have been beautifully decorated, and many historic buildings have been renovated.
Bocuse stressed that the rat problem is mainly caused by food being left on the ground or overflowing trash bins, many of which are being replaced with new rat-proof versions in Paris.
“The most important thing is that the cans are sealed and closed,” he said.
Caricature?
The city’s rodent exterminators – known as the “Smash” team – have also served in an advisory role for the Paris organising committee, suggesting ways to design its venues to keep them clean and tidy.
Trash removal and street cleaning will be the responsibility of the city’s 7,500-member cleaning and collection teams, whose three-week strike last year left an estimated 10,000 tonnes of trash on the streets.
They will receive a bonus of up to 1,900 euros for working during the Olympic period, while private contractors will also have to be prepared to strengthen efforts to keep the city clean.
“I’m not worried at all (about rats),” Antoine Guillou, the deputy mayor in charge of waste, told AFP. “On the contrary, the Games will help us show very clearly that this perception that Paris faces a lot of rats is wrong.
“There are issues that we deal with, but they are not limited to Paris, nor are they as large as is sometimes cynically suggested,” he said.
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