The proliferation of rats in Paris has become a matter of international concern. The French capital is suffering from an ever-increasing rodent population, to the effect that not a day goes by without residents coming face to face with these animals—whether in parks, on the metro, or in the city’s busiest streets. Unable to solve the problem, the socialist Town Hall has proposed the creation of a ‘committee’ to study how to ‘cohabit’ with these animals.
It is currently difficult to estimate the exact number of rats, a population that is by nature hidden and shifting. However, rat control professionals estimate that there are around 5 million rats in the whole of Paris, representing a ratio of 1.5 to 2 rats per inhabitant. Parisians come across them every day.
Despite complaints from residents and warnings from the health authorities about the dangerous nature of the omnipresence of these rodents, which are known to carry all kinds of diseases, the city council refuses to take drastic measures to reduce the rat population—mainly for ecological reasons and pressure from animal rights lobbies. In March, some of them were boldly marching through the streets of Paris to “defend the rats.” A few months earlier, Doucha Markovic, an ecologist elected to the Paris City Council, recommended referring to them as “surmulots” rather than “rats,” to avoid “stigmatising” those poor little creatures. Her statement sparked off a flurry of laughter and mockery, but her approach is fairly indicative of the paralysis of the entire Paris City Council on the issue of rats, which finds itself engaged in special rodent wokery.
On Thursday, June 8th, Anne Souyris, the aptly-named (souris is French for mouse), Paris City Council’s deputy health minister, announced at a council meeting that a working group would be set up to look into “cohabitation” with rats in the capital. The aim is to find the right balance between invasion and extermination—a tricky balancing act when dealing with a problem that is poisoning the lives of millions of residents and causing serious health problems.
For Anne Souyris, the matter is settled: “rats are not a public health problem,” and never mind that cases of leptospirosis, a disease transmitted by rat bites, are exploding. The good lady hastens to add that “that doesn’t mean we should let rats roam around the city.” Blessed be God.
The solution would therefore lie in a kind of ‘peaceful cohabitation’ between the rat species and the man/woman species and other genders, with particular attention paid to ‘prevention’—the magic word adulated by the Left when it comes to escaping reality. When it comes to rats, prevention doesn’t mean imposing citizenship training courses on rodents, but rather encouraging nasty humans not to throw food on the ground so as not to fatten up our rat friends.
All this has to be wrapped up in good feelings, as it should be. The Muséum d’histoire naturelle, the Institut Pasteur, VetAgro Sup, and the Sorbonne, in conjunction with the town hall, are therefore launching a parallel research programme to “combat prejudice to help Parisians live better with rats.”
The opposition at Paris City Council spoke out strongly against this absurd plan, pointing out that the presence of rats above ground is detrimental to the quality of life of Parisians and to retaining the 44 million visitors to the city every year—qualified as an “abnormal and unjustified fear,” according to Doucha Markovic.
Such benevolence towards these balls of fur that like to roll around in the mud leaves one dumbfounded. Could someone remind Anne Hidalgo that these efforts have no future? In this ambitious plan, she seems to have forgotten a minor detail crucial to the years to come: Parisians vote, but rats do not.
