The French are learning a lot these days about bedbugs, lit punaises, and all the media are contributing to the information. You learn where bugs come from, how dangerous they are and how to get rid of them. Experts seem remarkably calm, classifying the latest alleged spread into historic categories. On social media, however, the phenomenon is turning into a biblical plague. Everyone wants to have seen an animal: on the subway, on the TGV, on the upholstery of the cinema seats. And post your photos.
A few days ago, the newspaper Le Parisien published the headline: “Punaise! Source of psychosis!” You need to know that the word bug is also a swear word in French. “Damn! What psychosis!” And that perhaps says it all about the public impact of these dark brown animals, the size of apple seeds, without wings and with six little legs, which flee from the light and stab at night in search of their blood meal, often several times in a row.
Paris city administration calls for quick action
They are particularly feared because they prefer to hide in bed, where people want to feel safe. Bedbugs don’t transmit diseases, but that’s little consolation. Many people lose sleep thinking that they could be bitten by these unwanted roommates, and this makes them sick in the long run.
If you believe the alarmed people, bedbugs are currently taking over Paris and other large cities in the country, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux. The Paris city administration has now called on the national government to quickly present a plan to combat the pests. The poorest citizens should be reimbursed by the State for at least part of the costs incurred for professional disinfection – these are often more than a thousand euros.
Parisians are also very worried because the Summer Olympics are coming to the city next year and with them millions of visitors: this tawdry story about bedbugs is obviously an image catastrophe.
But: is the situation really that bad? A study found that bedbugs exist in around one in ten French homes and that the insects are becoming more widespread across the world. Apparently this is because they are resistant to the pesticides they used to work with. But above all, experts say, its growth is due to humanity’s many journeys. Insects travel in suitcases and clothes. The trend was briefly slowed during the pandemic. Now it’s pointing up again.
Hygiene, on the other hand, is not a factor, neither physical nor domestic. Bed bugs only feed on blood.
Pascal Praud, a famous talk show host on the right-wing channel CNews, something of France’s answer to Fox News, briefly discussed on his show a correlation between bedbugs and immigrants. “Do we know why there are more bedbugs today?” he asked his interlocutor, an expert. “There is a lot of immigration at the moment. Could it be that these people who don’t have the same hygiene as those who live on French soil are bringing bedbugs to us?” The expert then said: “No way, bed bugs have absolutely nothing to do with hygiene.” Praud’s racist insinuation brought the psychosis surrounding the virus onto the political stage, probably not accidentally.