Rats are on the rampage in the elegant garden of the Louvre Museum, so bold they romp on the grass in broad daylight, defying death threats from sanitation workers while scaring tourists.
Hot weather has brought many picnicking visitors to the garden, whose garbage is a feast for the rats, which also get help from animal lovers who dig up poison and provide water.
Maybe it is the Ratatouille effect, with beloved French rat Remy from Disney’s computer-animated film helping real-life rats win Parisian hearts.
The vermin are finding a lifeline from “people who don’t want us to kill animals,” said Jean-Claude Ndzana Ekani, a museum employee who was working on Tuesday with technicians from an extermination company.
The lush area which extends into the Tuileries Gardens gives a rat plenty of places to hide, but still the critters scamper about openly, unfazed by people strolling about.
The Louvre, which owns the garden, has been trying to combat the rat problem for months, but clearly has not succeeded.
In May, sanitation officials and exterminators decided to embark on an all-out offensive.
“A decision was made to do a shock operation,” Ekani said.
Workers, acting methodically, were seen on Tuesday pouring poison down rat holes.
“I see about 10 or 15 [rats] every day,” maintenance worker Traore Massamba, 25, said. “There are a lot of people who come here to picnic and they leave their leftovers, so I think that attracts them.”
Dutch tourist Evelyne Delemarre, 31, let out a scream after seeing a rat scamper by.
“I normally don’t see any rats,” she said. “They’re not really clean animals.”
No doubt Remy would be offended by such remarks, but he might appreciate the goings on at the Louvre Garden. He was an escape artist of sorts — and in the end outdid his enemies.
Rodents have long made Paris their home.
In 2000, mice were caught picnicking on pastries in the window of the luxury shop Fauchon. West of the capital, moles are an ever-present problem at the Palace of Versailles — which has a mole-catcher.
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