City of lights has become a city of trash

Agnès Poirier

(U.K.)

As a Parisian and a leftist, I should be thrilled by the re-election this week of Paris’ Socialist mayor, said Agnès Poirier. Instead, I’m depressed. During the six years that Anne Hidalgo has presided over the French capital, “Parisian life and landscape have changed so much for the worse” that those who haven’t visited the city in a while “should brace themselves for a shock.” It started with the rats. Growing up in Paris in the 1980s, I never saw a rodent—probably because the city kept streets pristine with an “expensive daily refuse collection system.” Under Hidalgo, that system collapsed, and now so many “rats feed on the filth”

that “one must be careful not to step on their tails as they scurry along.” Just as bad as the dirt is the hideous clutter. Parisian streets are today crammed with trash cans, “pissotières, water fountains, bus stops, electric dock stations, bike stations, lampposts, signposts, traffic barriers, bollards, public lavatories, and newsstands.” Sure, maybe we need some of these things, but couldn’t they have been designed with style and beauty in mind? Paris used to be walkable, but now the grand boulevards are “assault courses filled with official junk.” Good luck, Mayor Hidalgo: I’m thinking about packing my bags for London.