"It has black button eyes and long, thin whiskers that tremble when it looks around curiously. Unlike most rats, this one has a name, Plume, and gets to enjoy the rare privilege of wandering around Paris on the shoulder of its owner, a local politician. Gregory Moreau, a Paris district deputy mayor, is on a mission to reconcile residents with the capital's population of rats which, it is said, outnumber the inner city's two million human residents by a big margin."
""Hello, have you ever seen a rat?", Moreau asked an unsuspecting woman carrying two shopping bags around a market in Belleville, a bustling eastern Parisian neighbourhood. "Look what I'm carrying on my shoulder." The woman eyed the rodent sceptically, then broke out in a smile. "Is that Ratatouille?", she asked, a reference to the titular character of the Disney animated film about a rat that can cook."
Plume, a named rat with black button eyes and long trembling whiskers, travels on the shoulder of Gregory Moreau, a Paris district deputy mayor. Moreau conducts public outreach in Belleville markets and distributes leaflets showing appealing images of rats near the Eiffel Tower to improve public perception. The campaign emphasizes that rats consume about 100 tons of waste in Paris daily, helping prevent sewer blockages, and contends that rats are no longer major disease vectors in the city apart from occasional leptospirosis in rural areas. The campaign acknowledges the need for rodent control and advocates humane alternatives to traditional rat poison.
Read at The Local France
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