Raccoons appeared in France in several ways. In eastern France, they were introduced in 1966, according to Fabien Egal. They were the mascots of the GIs at a NATO base in the department of Aisne. The Americans left at the end of the 1960s, but the raccoons stayed.
But in Gironde, the story is different: they escaped from a zoo or circus 20 years ago. There were four or five of them at the time. Now there are 4,000 to 5,000, according to Christophe Coïc, director of the Cistude Nature association, which has studied this species.