Tails of the city: Paris rats find unlikely political ally

It has black button eyes and long, thin whiskers that tremble when it looks around curiously.

- 

The rat 'Plume' sits on the shoulder of Gregory Moreau, the deputy mayor of Paris's 11th district as he strolls through a market in the Belleville neighborhood in Paris on September 16, 2025.

(AFP)

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.