appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Agence France-Presse

The mayor of Paris said the city would spend €1.5 million (US$1.6 million) to rid the French capital of rats and install more public ashtrays to clean up the city’s streets.
In an interview with Journal du Dimanche weekly, Mayor Anne Hidalgo unveiled a 10-point plan aimed at making cleanliness a “priority”.
The measures include increasing the number of sanitation workers and health inspectors, expanding the hours for garbage pickup, and urging restaurants and buildings to provide more ashtrays at entrances and exit points.
Municipal workers collect more than 150 tonnes of cigarette butts every year in Paris.

“We already allot €500 million a year for cleanliness and waste management...and the situation has improved,” she said. “But it is clear that Paris is not yet perfectly clean. I want to speed up, increase efforts. It is a top priority.”
Disposable society, we bid you adieu. Why France has banned plastic plates and cutlery
“In a civilised city, cleanliness must be everybody’s responsibility,” she said, calling for a change in the mindsets and habits of residents. “In Tokyo, everything is clean and yet there are no dustbins because people wait to get home before throwing their waste.”

Paris had come under fire in December for allegedly dragging its feet before it launched what has been dubbed its “war on rats”.
Most of the criticism was centred on Hidalgo and the city’s environmental health services chief.
The city’s failure to keep the streets clean was also a major sticking point for residents, as a scathing commentary at the time in the conservative daily Le Figaro targeting the eco-friendly mayor revealed.
“New in the Parisian cityscape: filthy streets because of the total and persistent disarray in the cleaning services,” wrote author and politician Serge Federbusch, describing the situation as “Hidalchaos”.

In announcing the €1.5 million anti-rodent campaign, Hidalgo said the city would buy new traps for the rats and surround some of the city’s 30,000 rubbish bins with wooden or Plexiglass bases.
The bins are currently lined with flimsy plastic bags designed to avert terror attacks by making it harder to hide explosives in them.
The Republican group on the Council of Paris however scoffed at Hidalgo’s measures.
“Anne Hidalgo is attempting to short-circuit her opposition by announcing as of now certain placebo measures, but there is absolutely nothing new,” said the group.
Jakarta offers $1.50 reward for each rat as it launches massive rodent hunt
The Republicans said an investigative commission will begin to study the city’s cleanliness problem in May, suggesting that only then can the city come up with the right policies to “know how to remake Paris” into “a clean city”.
The Journal du Dimanche said cleanliness “is the city’s management weak point”.


Paris mayor wants city to be clean like Tokyo, unveils rodent and cigarette butt plan

The mayor of Paris said the city would spend 1.5 million euros ($1.6 million) to rid the French capital of rats. File photo: Shutterstock

A man rests past overflowing garbage cans and rubbish bags in Paris, France, Thursday, June 9, 2016. After a rough couple of months which have included protests, fuel shortages, rail strikes and once-in-a-generation floods, France's capital is facing a new challenge : Piles of uncollected trash. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo (R) and Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike (L) pose before the logo of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games at Koike's office in Tokyo on February 27, 2017. Hidalgo is in Tokyo to inspect sports sites of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. / AFP PHOTO / QUENTIN TYBERGHIEN

Two pigeons walk on Trocadero square in front of The Eiffel Tower on a sunny morning on March 02, 2017, in Paris / AFP PHOTO / Ludovic MARIN

News

World

Europe