The number of school closures has increased recently because just hours before Minister Attal, the Ministry of Education stated that five schools with a total of 1,500 students had been closed. Earlier this week, authorities announced that two schools – one in Marseille and another near Lyon – had been closed. Because of the cleaning work, how hot it is.
The French government held a series of meetings this week to examine the rising number of reported bedbug cases – as France hosts the Rugby World Cup and prepares to host the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. “We have almost 60,000 facilities and we are only talking about a few here – but it is true that cases are increasing,” Attal said.
List of companies “approved” for removal
In any case, a quick response to treat affected facilities within 24 hours is important, the minister said. In collaboration with the Ministry of Health and regional health authorities, a list of “approved and recognized” companies was created “so that the school management has the appropriate contacts and can intervene very quickly”.
It is estimated that a tenth of all French homes have had a bed bug problem in recent years, usually requiring a pest control operation costing several hundred euros and needing to be repeated frequently. The parasites have been reported on the Paris metro, trains and at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport – but individual cases have not been confirmed by authorities.
Library in Amiens reopens
A municipal library in the northern city of Amiens was due to reopen at the weekend after remaining closed for several days. Bedbugs were discovered in public reading rooms, the city’s mayor, Brigitte Foure, told AFP news agency. A sniffer dog found no trace of the pest after treating the library, she said.
Bed bugs largely disappeared from everyday life in the 1950s, but have been increasingly present over the past three decades. This situation is made worse by travel, buying used clothing, increasing resistance to insecticides and probably also climate change. Reference is made to the rules: travelers should not place suitcases on hotel beds – and clothing suspected of being infested should be washed at 60 degrees.