Visit Paris, Which Is Now Infested by Rats Tourists Seem to Love

France’s capital is so damned sophisticated, it seems that even the city’s vermin are cultured. The lawns of the Louvre Museum have a new breed of visitors joining the usual art-loving crowd this summer: rats. Loads of rats.

Hiding in the formal box hedges that run like ribs across the lovely Jardin Du Carrousel, the Louvre’s rats may number in the hundreds this year. According to many reports in the French press, they've gotten so bold that they’re coming out in daylight, skittishly sucking up the crumbs of a thousand tourist picnics before scuttling back to shelter. Like most big cities, Paris has its fair share of rodents. And the Louvre’s proximity to the Seine means its precincts have always acted as a sort of murine highway. Still, Paris isn’t used to anything like the sheer effrontery of these daytime packs, who have arrived in such numbers due to a special set of circumstances.