Less than a year before the Olympic Games, France was gripped by a real psychosis related to bed bugs, writes News.ro. 11% of French households were officially infested with these insects. But bed bugs attacked not only Parisian households. Social media users have posted images of insects crawling on high-speed trains and the Paris metro. They would be seen in cinemas and even at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Reports have reached the highest levels of government, with bed bugs the subject of debate in Parliament on Tuesday.

In a report published in July, the health agency Anses said that between 2017 and 2022 bed bugs were infested in more than one in ten French households. “Everyone is panicking,” said Sacha Krief, manager of a disinfestation store. “People can get really depressed, even paranoid about it,” he says.

With less than a year to go before the Olympic Games in Paris, French authorities want to make sure that bed bugs do not cause problems for athletes and have launched a campaign to eradicate these pests.

“The state must urgently implement an action plan against this scourge as France prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024,” said the capital’s deputy mayor, Emmanuel Grégoire, in a letter addressed this week to Prime Minister Elizabeth Terminals. He also urged insurers to include bed bug coverage in home insurance policies because low-income people rarely have the means to hire exterminators.

After images of such insects appeared on train seats, Transport Minister Clement Bohn said on Friday that he would discuss the issue with transport operators.

However, at Gare de Lyon in Paris, travelers say they doubt the authorities will be able to solve the problem. “I am worried about this. I will keep my luggage closed to prevent (insects) from entering my house. When I get home, I will have to wash all my clothes,” shopkeeper Laura Mmadi, who was on her way to the south of France.

After arriving in Paris from Nice, Sophie Ruscica says she carefully inspected her chair to check for traces of these insects, which feed on human blood and can live in a variety of habitats, including beds. “It was very stressful for me. I had to take the train and I wondered if I would find bed bugs. But lately you can find them in cinemas and almost everywhere,” she says.

Debates in the National Assembly

In these circumstances, political groups in the National Assembly competed in front of the media on Tuesday to encourage public authorities to take action in the face of the growing anxiety caused by these insects, reports AFP.

Speaking of a real “scourge”, the leader of the Renastrea deputies opened the morning session: “We have decided to make this topic a priority”, announced Sylvain Maillard, together with Modem and Horizons, allies of the presidential camp. The leader of the Macronists in the Bourbon Palace announced the preparation of the bill, which will be considered in early December.

His colleague Robin Reda, also the author of a text on the subject in 2021, added that the text being prepared could allow the problem to be recognized as a “public health problem”.

“We have lost six years,” Mathilde Panot, president of the Insoumis deputies, quickly responded to the press, claiming that she had “sounded the alarm” since 2017 and recalled that she had submitted “a proposal for a resolution in 2019.” Then, during the government meeting, the deputy waved a bottle with bugs. “You laughed in my face, you did nothing,” she told Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne, again calling for a national prevention plan and the creation of a “public disinfestation service”. Her group also tabled a new resolution in this regard.

“There should be no disagreements on this issue,” replied the prime minister, who announced a “meeting in the coming days with all involved ministries,” especially the ministries of ecological transition, housing and communal services, and health care. “Let’s work together and find solutions together,” Bourne urged.

Other political groups also initiated measures. The Socialist group was set to introduce the bill on Tuesday, its spokesman Arthur Delaporte announced. The bill proposes to include “in all compulsory home insurance policies a guarantee against the risks associated with bed bug infestation,” he said, because “many people refuse” to take action “because of the exorbitant cost” of disinfestation. Socialists also propose to introduce “the obligation to monitor and control all units open to the public.”

Faced with this proliferation of initiatives, “there is a way to reach an agreement,” the Socialist lawmaker said, proposing a “working group to bring these various proposals together.”

A majority MP, who spoke on condition of anonymity, scoffed at his colleagues being “swept away”. “The legislation has no particular purpose other than to say that the national parliament is dealing with an issue that concerns the French,” he said.

The truth about bed bug infestations

Having disappeared from everyday life in the 1950s, bed bugs have made a comeback in many developed countries over the past thirty years thanks to increasingly nomadic lifestyles, consumer trends favoring second-hand goods, and growing resistance to insecticides.

French Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau said on Tuesday that this was not “reason for mass panic”, although he acknowledged that “when you have bed bugs, hell begins”.

What is true is that the number of bed bugs has increased in recent weeks in Paris and other French cities, and this upward trend goes back several years, writes the BBC.

“At the end of every summer, we see an increase in the number of bed bugs,” says Jean-Michel Berenger, an entomologist at the main hospital in Marseille and a leading French expert on bed bugs. “This is due to the fact that people go in July-August and bring them back in their luggage. And every year the seasonal increase is greater than last year,” says the expert.

In Paris, new sources of anxiety have been added to apartment dwellers’ long-standing fear of infestation. Reports that bugs have been seen in theaters recently are unconfirmed but are being taken seriously. And also statements that these insects stung people on trains.

And now both the Paris City Hall and the government of President Emmanuel Macron demand to take measures. This is a measure of the seriousness with which they take the problem, as they have to protect the image of Paris before the 2024 Olympic Games. So I’m not dismissing bug panic as an invention of social media.

Danger of psychosis

Scary stories spread so quickly on the Internet that they turn what was once good news on an otherwise uneventful day into a national emergency.

Movie theater owners, already worried about declining attendance, get a serious scare when footage shows unidentified ticks on seats. People who ride the subway began to check the upholstery. Some prefer to stand.

“This year there is a new element — and that is the general psychosis that has started,” says Jean-Michel Berenger. “It’s a good thing in a way because it serves to raise awareness of the problem, and the sooner action is taken against bed bugs, the better. But a significant part of the problem is exaggerated,” says the expert.

The truth is that bed bugs come back in force, and this can continue for 20 or 30 years. But this happens not only in France, but everywhere. There are several factors, of which globalization, including container trade, tourism and immigration, is the most important. Climate change can be ruled out. Bed bug – cimex lectularius, from the Latin name – a domesticated creature. It goes where people go. The weather does not interfere.

After World War II, bed bugs, like many other pests, were greatly reduced by the widespread use of DDT. But over the years, DDT and many other chemicals have been banned because of their effects on humans.

The parasites that survived DDT are the ancestors of the modern race, which is therefore much more resistant.

On the other hand, according to Berenger, people in developed countries are more likely to panic about bed bugs because they have lost their collective memory. In other parts of the world, these insects are still common, and people keep the extent of the threat.

The truth is that bed bugs do pose a threat, but the danger is more psychological than physical. Cimex lectularis may be an unpleasant presence, but it is not known to transmit disease. His bites are annoying, but they don’t last long.

It sheds its exoskeleton at regular intervals; leaves feces in the form of black dots (digested blood); she squirms in delight at the smell of a man; and can last a year without food. All these are horrors to behold. But the real damage is done to the mental health of the infected person.

“A year ago, my 29-year-old son found bedbugs in his apartment in the 20th district. He threw out the bed, washed all his clothes, cleaned the place from top to bottom. But he still couldn’t. sleep. He began to imagine something crawling over his skin. It became an obsession. It was only after an expensive steam treatment of his apartment by a reputable pest control company that he was able to breathe again. Some pest control agents use sniffer dogs to track them down,” writes a BBC correspondent in Paris.