Paris War On Rats Faces Backlash From Animal Rights Activists

Public health officials who have embarked on a campaign to eradicate rodents from Paris are facing hurdles in doing their job as French animal activists have compared the initiative to genocide.

The plan, which is officially underway, involves the closing down of public places such as Cambronne and Garibaldi in the 15 ^th Arrondissement, as well as two gardens and the Champ de Mars, a large greenspace between the Eiffel Tower and the Ecole Militaire and the boulevard Richard-Lenoir.

Public officials of the City of Light are to install rodenticide, cork the rodents’ tunnels and clean up the rat traps, according to a city government press release. However, the plan faces opposition from some Parisians.

For Instance, Pierre Falgayrac, author of the book "Men and Rats," and a critic of the city’s plan, believes French society has a “terrible lack of knowledge” about rats.

Speaking to French newspaper Le Figaro and citing the famous animated feature "Ratatouille," he said: “In cartoons, the rodent is always presented in a negative light.”

Another critic of the plan, animal rights activist Josette Benchetrit, whose online petition, “Stop the genocide of rats,” which has already garnered more than 21,500 signatures, is demanding an immediate stop to the city’s plan.

“We are killing all these unfortunates without mercy in the name of our phobia of rats…But the phobia of rats is a social phobia like that of spiders” she said according to Heat Street.

Benchetrit, who argues that “rats don’t kill anyone,” is advocating a different strategy. She suggests a contraceptive plan to keep the rodents population down is a better alternative.

“We need to find alternatives like a contraceptive policy… You have to teach people to know the rats and not be afraid. I would like to teach people to fight their phobias rather than rats. We must stop this violence. That is a bad example,” Benchetrit told French daily Le Parisien.

The head of Paris’ environmental services in charge of the campaign, George Salines, who Benchetrit calls the “killer-in-chief,” dismissed the critics and hit back at them while speaking to Agence France-Presse (AFP), according to Heat Street.

“Animal lovers don’t like it, nor do I because I love animals too…But when it’s an emergency… we have to carry out operations to destroy them,” he added. “Rats multiply very, very fast …As long as they have food, water and places to burrow, they’ll multiply.” he told AFP, adding that the problem was also a ‘visual nuisance’ that may harm the image of Paris.

With an estimated 4 million rodents, the rat-to-human ratio in Paris is at 1.75, according to Le Parisien.

Speaking to Esquire, documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock who shot his recent documentary called “Rats” for the Discovery Channel said that the French capital may not even compare to some American cities.

“They would not let us into the subways or the sewers of New York City,” Spurlock told the magazine, adding that authorities in the Big Apple wouldn’t tell him and his team why, but probably “don’t want you to see what’s in there.” “If there are that many rats in Paris, I can only imagine how many more there are in New York City.”