Paris would only have enough food and water to cope for between five and seven days in the event of an emergency, according to a new report into the city's ability to survive.
Together with police, Paris city hall launched investigations two years ago to discover how long the 2.1 million people who live in the capital could go without vital supplies.
In a study published this week, urbanism experts at the Atelier Parisien d'Urbanisme (Apur) found the city would could last a week at the most – slightly longer, in fact, than previously estimated.
"Supply disruption had been identified as a major risk, but the authorities had no reliable data on food resilience," Pénélope Komites, deputy mayor in charge of resilience, told French news agency AFP after the publication of Apur's analysis on Tuesday.
"We were talking about three days' self-sufficiency without knowing where this figure came from. Knowing that it is between five and seven days is a bit more reassuring," she said.
Emergency food stores
Apur estimates that with an average of 1.45 kg of food eaten per person per day, 3,090 tonnes of food are needed to feed the 2,146,000 residents of Paris and provide 6.5 million meals a day.
Its survey first looked at where food is stored in normal times. Researchers found three main places: household cupboards (containing between 36 hours and five days of reserves on average), shops and community catering (two days of reserves) and food logistics warehouses (also two days).
The study suggests establishing basement storage spaces around the city. Land and depots such as warehouses, car parks and exhibition centres should also be designated to store more foodstuffs, it says.
The study equally highlights another significant problem: 95 percent of foodstuffs arrive in Paris by truck. It suggests increasing the use of the river and railways to bring in supplies in an emergency.
The report adds: "The aim of these measures is to ensure the security of the food supply, particularly for resident populations in the event of a one-off crisis that disrupts or slows down the supply chain."
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Hundred-day goal
City officials are also weighing the feasibility of creating a second wholesale food market in the north of the city to complement the massive Rungis market on its south-eastern fringes.
In 2022, Paris city chiefs published an action plan to counter a range of problems likely to be faced in the coming decade, including "social, economic, territorial and cultural divides, geopolitical tensions, climate disruption [and] dwindling natural resources".
"Faced with the challenges of the 21st century, Paris is demonstrating its resilience," the strategy says. "Resilience means putting in place solutions to better anticipate and overcome any crises that may arise."
As part of that goal, they want the capital's population to be able to hold out for 100 days in the event of an emergency.
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