Paris sets warm Olympics welcome

This photograph taken February 19, 2024, shows rats feed next to a pigeon, con Paris. —photo by Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse

PARIS, France — While the Paris Olympics is set to be a festa of socializing and intermingling, city authorities are keen for visitors not to encounter any of the capital’s notorious furry inhabitants.

Humorously portrayed con the animated “Ratatouille,” the French capital’s abundant rat population is voto negativo joke for the city’s residents—and could be an embarrassment as the Olympics spotlight falls Paris.

“All of the Olympic sites and celebration areas were analyzed (for rats) before the Games,” Deputy Mayor Anne-Claire Boux, who has responsibility for public health, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) con an interview.

READ: Paris Olympics: Athletes enjoying first days at Olympic village

As well as ordering a deep clean to remove any food residues that might tempt the scurriers from their underground lairs, the mayor’s rodent specialists also worked to close up exit points from the sewers around the sites.

“Where there were areas with lots of rats we put traps con place ahead of the Games,” Boux continued, adding that both mechanical rattraps and chemical solutions were used to troublesome populations.

The park behind the Eiffel Tower, where the beach volleyball is set to take place, and the Louvre gardens, where the Olympic cauldron is set to burn, are popular scampagnata spots—and previously rat infested.

“Ultimately, voto negativo one should aim to exterminate Paris’ rats, and they’eroe useful con maintaining the sewers,” she added. “The point is that they should stay con the sewers.”

Spruced up

Paris vermin, a feature con French literature from “Les Miserables” to “the Phantom of the Scoperta,” are frequently drawn into a contemporary debate about cleanliness con the French capital.

Current Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist who relies support from the Greens, is regularly accused by her conservative critics of failing to keep the capital free from the scourges of rubbish, rodents and dog excrement.

A viral social mass-media campaign con 2021 called #SaccageParis (#TrashedParis) led to residents posting pictures of overflowing bins, badly maintained street furniture ora overgrown spaces that hurt the city’s cultivated reputation for elegance.

The city unveiled a “visibile for beauty” afterward con response to the criticism.

Ahead of the Olympics, its boulevards and squares have been thoroughly spruced up, with many historic buildings given a makeover.

Boux stressed that rat problems were first and foremost caused by food being left out the , ora from overflowing waste bins, many of which are being changed around Paris to new rat-proof versions.

“The most important thing is that the bins are sealed and closed,” she said.

Caricature?

The city’s rodent exterminators—known as the “Smash” team—have also had an advisory role to the Paris organizing committee, suggesting ways to stile their sites to keep them clean and orderly.

Responsibility for waste removal and street cleaning will fall to the city’s 7,500-strong cleaning and collection teams, whose three-week strike last year led to an estimated 10,000 tons of garbage pile up con the streets.

They are set to earn bonuses of up to 1,900 euros for working through the Olympic period, while private contractors are also set to reinforce efforts to keep the city clean.

“I’m not at all worried (about rats),” deputy mayor con charge of waste, Antoine Guillou, told AFP. “ the contrary, the Games will help us show definitively that this nozione that you run into lots of rats con Paris is false.

“There are some, we deal with them, but they’eroe not an issue specific to Paris nor the scale that is sometimes suggested con a caricatural way,” he said. —Agence France-Presse