With the Paris Olympics less than a year away, there have been fears that the blood-sucking insects could endanger participants in the next summer’s Olympics. These concerns have led to calls for action.
Videos of bedbugs found on high-speed trains and the Paris metro have been posted on social media. People are reporting sightings of these creatures even in movie theaters and Charles de Gaulle Airport. The online media is flooded daily with news of this “invasion”.
After the information reached the highest levels of government, Transport Minister Clemente Beaune said on Friday that he would discuss the matter with transport operators next week.
Bed bugs
Photo:
Wikimedia Commons
Beaune promised to “reassure and protect” passengers who use public transport and said on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, that transport operators would “act more in favor of customers”.
His post came a day after Paris deputy mayor Emmanuel Grégoire wrote a letter on behalf of the French capital’s city hall calling on Prime Minister Élisabeth Borneo to intervene against the “disaster”.
“The state urgently needs to implement an action plan against this scourge as France prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024,” Grégoire wrote, according to Reuters.
“No one is safe,” he said in a separate post on the X Network on Thursday, calling for “coordinated action” between health authorities and local communities to prevent the spread of the bed bugs, which burrow into furniture, clothing and bedding and feed by them, blood, and usually at night. Females can lay up to seven eggs a day, meaning infestations can spread quickly.
According to a July study by the agency ANSES, which deals with the assessment of health risks in food, the environment and workplaces, more than one in ten French households were affected by bed bugs between 2017 and 2022. Bed bug bites can cause rashes, allergic reactions and blisters. The French government recommends that people wash clothes and bedding at high temperatures, vacuum furniture and carpets, and contact professional pest control services if the problem persists.
Household income level does not affect the likelihood of becoming a victim of a bed bug infestation. However, the income level of families plays a role in the duration of the infestation, as domestic extermination services charge an average of 866 euros (21,000 crowns), as reported by ANSES.
Deputy Mayor Grégoire has called on home insurance companies to include the cost of extermination in their plans, and the city will support lower-income households with financial contributions to exterminate bed bugs.
According to Sophia Marie Niang, who studies sociology at Cambridge, bed bug infestations are getting worse for people on lower incomes who cannot afford the ever-increasing cost of extermination.
Members of the National Assembly have been calling for a cap on extermination prices, but their calls have been ignored since 2019. The problem has also gained momentum thanks to tourists in low-hygiene rentals unwittingly bringing bed bugs into central Paris. This infestation contributed to concerns that the city was not sufficiently prepared for the 2024 Summer Olympics. Almost simultaneously, mass protests erupted in Paris following the police killing of Nahel Marzouk, a 17-year-old of North African descent. Both events do not bode well for Paris heading into the Olympics.
Source: eurozpravy.cz
