The European "Garden" today:
There are now 1.5 to 1.75 rats for every person living in Paris. The French National Medicine Academy has issued a about the “threat to the human health” posed by rats and the diseases they can pass on to humans.
The city’s garbage collectors have been on strike since March 6 in protest at a
reform of France’s pension system championed by President Emmanuel Macron. The reform would
the age of retirement for garbage collectors — who can at present retire early with reduced benefits on account of the hardship of their work, which has been shown to
their life expectancy — from 57 to 59.
As a consequence, around
5,600 tons of uncollected waste lay in the streets of the capital on Monday — day eight of the strike — according to the Paris mayor’s office, quoted by French newswire
.
“
It’s shitty, it’s not pretty and it smells,” said Mathilde Boyer, 23, who lives in the southern 15th district.
Guillaume Meigniez, 28, said he’s not particularly worried about the rats, because they’re already “quite numerous” in normal times ” and “they’re not going to start ganging up and attacking people.”
