France’s government is working hard to contain a national panic over bedbugs as they have become a nightmare haunting France for weeks.
The government has been forced to step in to calm an increasingly anxious nation that will host the Olympic Games in just over nine months — a prime venue for infestations of the crowd-loving insects.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called a meeting of ministers for Friday to tackle the bedbug crisis. The country’s transport minister, Clement Beaune, met this week with transportation companies to draw up a plan for monitoring and disinfecting — and to try to ease what some have called a national psychosis inflamed by the media.
Still, bedbugs have plagued France and other countries for decades. The insects the size of an apple seed that neither jump nor fly get around as easily as people travel from city to city and nation to nation, and they have become increasingly resistant to insecticides. If that’s not enough to make you itchy: Bedbugs can stay alive for a year without a meal.
The French public began moving into panic mode about a month ago after reports of bedbugs at a Paris movie theater. Videos began popping up on social networks, showing little insects on trains and buses.
Now, both Socialists and centrists of President Emmanuel Macron’s party want to propose bills to fight bedbugs. Far-left lawmaker Mathilde Panot recently brought a vial of bedbugs to the Parliament to chastise the government for, in her view, letting the creatures run rampant.
Bedbugs, an age-old curse on humans, seemingly disappeared with treatment by harsh, now-banned insecticides. They made a reappearance in the 1950s, especially in densely populated cities like New York. And they travel the world thanks to commerce and tourism.
That adds up to a bedbug challenge for the Paris Olympics starting in July.
What do bedbugs look like?
Look out for flat, wingless brown insects the size of an apple seed. Bedbugs don’t jump or fly. The eggs are white and resemble lice.
If you’re staying in an Airbnb or hotel, look out for their droppings. They look like concentrations of small black dots on mattresses, bed frames, and in the corner of walls. Red or dark brown spots could indicate the presence of crushed blood-engorged bugs.
And if you’re waking up to groupings of three to four red, itchy, blotchy patches that look like mosquito bites on your face, arms, legs or back, you may be sleeping in infested quarters.
Bedbugs are adept at hiding in mattresses, sofas, carpets and skirting boards. The blood-sucking insects feast at night and can bite up to 90 times in a single night. But they don’t transmit disease.
