Meet Michaël, the man behind keeping the French Open stands clean from pigeons

A job that Michael has to do every day… In the middle of a tournament, the stands are a real pantry for the pigeons “There’s plenty of crushed food. Bits of chips, bits of bread. The pigeons aren’t there by chance. And they’re not afraid of humans at all. So we’re here to clean up otherwise it would be super dirty in the stands”.

Michaël comes almost every day during the tournament, but he also works regularly the rest of the year at Porte d’Auteuil: “ We come in preventive mode several times a month during the year. This is to avoid having a lot of pigeons during the fortnight of the tournament. What’s nice is that I have center court all to myself in the morning. Well, it’s a bit empty… (laughs)”.

Michaël, Nova and Toa leave the Parisian clay court around 8:30 a.m. The buzzards leave to rest in their aviary before resuming their mission the next morning.