The mayor of Paris’ 17th arrondissement, Geoffroy Boulard, has been invited to New York City for a very special occasion – the first ever ‘National Rat Summit’.

Boulard has made a name for himself in fighting against the proliferation of rats, as evidenced by an iconic photo that went viral showing the mayor sporting a pair of white gloves, holding several dead rats by the tail. 

Paris : avec ses méthodes de lutte contre les rats, le maire du XVIIe veut « inspirer New York »
➡️ https://t.co/Ruyn4pgfHX pic.twitter.com/jZ3Av2Nqws

— Le Parisien | Paris (@LeParisien_75) September 20, 2024

Boulard also launched a website called signalunrat.paris – which allows residents to report ‘in real time’ rat sightings in the arrondissement, so the pests can be dealt with.

The mayor of north-western Paris has also discussed using different techniques, such as dry ice or more innovative traps, such as the ‘Strygoo’ devices.

Eight of these were put into use, and the arrondissement’s town hall announced plans in May to purchase more. Basically, they bait the rats with seeds, then the rats fall into a trap of 10 litres of water with 500ml of paraffin oil, which acts like an embalming fluid, allowing the rats to be frozen and killed instantly.

One experimental trap saw 300 rats killed within nine weeks. Boulard said this method “can inspire New York”.

“New York City was interested in the results we’ve. We’ve noted, since the website’s introduction, a 70 percent drop in reports,” Boulard told Le Parisien.

This is not Boulard’s first trip to New York – after his dead-rat photo went viral in 2018, Eric Adams, who was at the time Brooklyn Borough President and a fellow anti-rat crusader, invited him for a visit.

Since 2018, Adams has been elected mayor of New York City, and he has made it his mission to wage war against rats by hiring a ‘rat czar’, attempting to build a team of anti-rat activists, called the ‘Rat Pack’, and most recently, hosting the rat summit.

Boulard’s team was quick to specify that the elected official paid for the trip with his own private funds, before noting that he is also visiting to get ideas from anti-rat and waste management techniques in the US.

“Waste management is a serious issue, we need to educate people about sorting. Beyond the simple problem of rats, it is a question of addressing all the issues of sanitation, cleanliness and general management that arise in large cities,” Boulard told Le Parisien.

READ MORE: French city to use ‘contraceptive lofts’ in bid to halve pigeon population

Paris already has rules in place about not feeding pests – such as pigeons or rats. Doing so can lead to a find of up to €135, though Boulard noted that the finds are “much higher [in New York City] than in Pars”.

Boulard’s approach is a stark contrast to that of Paris’ mayor, Anne Hidalgo.

In 2023, Hidalgo and her team advocated for the creation of a special committee that would study a ‘cohabitation’ between the city’s residents: six million rats and two million humans.

The mayor of the 17th arrondissement – part of the right-wing Les Républicains party – has not been shy about attacking Hidalgo’s idea.

In one interview, he invited Hidalgo to “go for a walk around the Eiffel Tower”, calling the plan “absurd”.

Though you might say that the mayor’s more resigned approach could be a recognition that the vermin – which once carried the bubonic plague and later served as food for the city’s residents during the Prussians’ siege of Paris in 1870-71 – are probably here to stay.