Paris has become the city of love, rats and bugs  

There are said to be six million rats in Paris. I met one last week when I was retrieving some winter clothes from a bag in my cellar.  Neither of us was particularly keen to make the other’s acquaintance. 

Such a brief encounter may not please the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. In the summer her office announced the establishment of a committee to study how the city’s three million human inhabitants can learn to ‘cohabit’ with their furry neighbours.   

Animal rights’ groups and green politicians expressed their satisfaction that the societal scourge of rat shaming is finally being challenged. Paris councillor Douchka Markovic has said the word ‘rat’ is pejorative and she wants them renamed ‘surmulots’. She added that rats are ‘useful’ in the ecosystem.

One initiative already underway is a research project involving the Natural History Museum, the Pasteur Institute and the Sorbonne, the purpose of which is to ‘combat prejudices to help Parisians live better with rats’.