Paris is the theatre of many battles, but none has been more burlesque than the fight to save or annihilate – according to which side of the argument you belong – the wild rabbits living in the shadow of Napoleon’s tomb. Three hundred or so of these furry friends, or fiends, have been digging thousands of tunnels underneath the manicured lawn of the Esplanade des Invalides, ruining the 16-hectare (40-acre) site overseen by the French military.
Gnawing on electrical cables and garden hoses, they have transformed the grass plot into gruyère, as well as leaving behind tons of their signature round droppings. The military personnel must be feeling their skills are wasted, spending precious hours each day, as they now must do, collecting rabbit caca.
The solution should be easy, one might argue: simply euthanise them humanely. About 50 wild rabbits were removed that way back in spring 2020, just after France’s Covid lockdown, when nobody seemed to be watching. Except that one animal rights association did care – and very much so. Paris Animaux Zoopolis took the plight of the rabbits to court, and has continued to do so systematically each time the army has approached Parisian authorities for their help and authorisation in evicting the intruders.
As a result, the rabbits, undeterred, have been at it – like rabbits – and thus have continued to multiply. Authorities estimate that it would cost €366,000 (£313,000) to reverse the destruction they have wreaked. Alarmed by the rising costs, and perhaps also by the state of the lawn only a few months before the Olympic Games, the local authority recently allowed for the Parisian rabbits to relocate to Bréau, a village of 360 inhabitants, 70km (43 miles) south-east of Paris. Will each villager receive a free rabbit? The plan, so far, is unclear. However, Zoopolis is still not satisfied by the non-lethal solution found to resolve the pressing issue.
Three weeks ago, Zoopolis activists wearing rabbit masks protested near Les Invalides, at the entrance of the army museum. They warned against the “violence” that rabbits might be subjected to during capture, before they are released. The stress may provoke cardiac arrest, they argued. As for their release in the countryside, “Hunters will probably have a go at them at some point,” declared the Zoopolis president, Amandine Sanvisens.
But even with humane efforts to rehome them, the rabbits won’t be disappearing from the site any time soon. It only takes a couple to start a big family, and even the army is likely to miss one or two pairs of long furry ears hiding in a hole. This colony has in fact a glorious lineage. They took part in the war effort during the second world war, sacrificing themselves to feed more than one hungry British aviator, when the French resistance fighter George Morin and his family, hiding in the Hôtel des Invalides, supervised a network expatriating stranded Allied soldiers to Spain and Britain.
Thirty-five years earlier, they had been Rodin’s muse – and friends. In a letter written on the last day of August 1908, the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote to Auguste Rodin to urge him to consider setting up a studio at 77 rue de Varenne, opposite Les Invalides. There stood the old, decrepit Hôtel Biron, used as a convent between 1820 and 1905, then rented out to artists. “You should, my dear great friend, come and see this beautiful building and the room that I have rented today. Its three big French windows prodigiously give out on a wild garden where one can see naive wild rabbits jump through the trellis like in an old tapestry.”
Rodin accepted and he was so charmed by the place and the rabbits that he subsequently rented four rooms on the ground floor to set up his atelier. When the government planned on demolishing the entire building a few years later, Rodin offered to bequeath his entire oeuvre, plus his private art collection to France, if he would be able to stay at the Hôtel Biron among his rabbits. What a bargain – the French government could hardly have refused.
My bet is that these rabbits will continue to survive every cull attempt to proudly play their part in France’s history. And of course, there may be other ways to reduce their numbers and limit the damage they inflict on this part of Paris. This Parisian would gladly see them delivered to chef Alain Passard, whose three-Michelin-starred restaurant is only a few metres away. The renowned vegetable lover is said to occasionally cook the best of rabbit stews. Problem solved, non?
Agnès Poirier is a political commentator, writer and critic for the British, American and European press
