The rat, the new fashionable muse of Marseille artists

A scourge common to many metropolises, the rat is on the way to becoming a cool and quirky emblem in the trendy circles of Marseille, in the south-east of France, where it has become the source of inspiration for more and more artists. more numerous.

Duplicated with stencils on the walls, available in t-shirts and even erected as a statue, the rodent is displayed without shame in the Mediterranean city. As soon as evening falls, the “Rattus” bustles around garbage containers, often in the open air, sometimes sneaking between the legs of frightened tourists. “In Marseille, the rats go out a bit like the Mediterranean: they put the chair outside and then they talk… They are seen in Marseille,” laughs Rhazi, manager of the Brick City store which launched a dedicated collection, “Racoste”.

“It’s common to all big cities, we agree. And it is proportional to the number of inhabitants, we also agree. But in Marseille, they are nicer,” assures this resident of France’s second city.

In his store located very close to Cours Julien, the arty youth district of Marseille, the star t-shirt, white and green, takes up the codes of a famous crocodile brand. Multicolored caps, bucket hats and other hats also feature a little rat logo.

In the store, a customer tries on different caps. Arnaud Devauchelle says he has already “had experiences with rats in Marseille, which go between your legs or things like that”, but, for him, “it’s cool!”.

In his workshop, Rémy Lieveloo airbrushes a large gray rat with a long pink tail, crossed out with the name of Marseille, on a t-shirt. This painter says he had “this idea for all the tourists who come in the summer and have the image of Marseille that the city wants to give to tourists”. Except that, he says, “the reality is that the city is what it is, it will not change. And rats are part of the Marseille decor.

Comic hero of wall frescoes, the rat comes in flip-flops, or in the colors of the Olympique de Marseille (OM) football club. “Forever, Olympian,” proclaims a rodent, hat on his head and glasses on his nose.

According to municipal estimates, Marseille has around 1.5 million rats, or 1.5 to 1.7 rats per inhabitant. “Being from the city center, we have always known rats, we cannot say that there are more or less of them than before,” estimates the visual artist Alain Paris.

If the rat amuses some people, it is a real calamity in many neighborhoods of France’s second city, nesting in the mailboxes of degraded condominiums or climbing the floors of certain residences. In July 2022, the National Academy of Medicine warned against “the overpopulation of sewer rats in large cities like Paris and Marseille”, recalling that it “is a real danger for public health”.