1 out of 1 house in L’HaylesRoses, near Paris, undergoes bed bug disinfection. — Photo: Portal STEPHANIE LECOCQ The house in L’HaylesRoses near Paris is being disinfected against bed bugs. — Photo: Portal STEPHANIE LECOCQ
Empty classes, users not sitting on public transport, potentially infested furniture on the street: the French government is trying to curb national concern about bed bugs. Education Minister Gabriel Attal announced that seven schools in the country were closed due to the parasite infestation.
Images of bed bugs crawling on a train seat or waiting for a customer in a cinema seat have been circulating on social media for weeks, putting France on alert. At the Elisa Lemonnier high school in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, 14 classes are “infected,” according to a message from the school principal sent to teachers on Friday morning and consulted by AFP.
“There is absolute psychosis between parents and students. I keep getting messages from parents saying they won’t send their child while there are bugs,” said a teacher who requested anonymity.
The education minister said a total of seven educational institutions in the country were closed. “And we discovered bed bugs to varying degrees in just over 15, I think 17 companies,” added Gabriel Attal.
In Amiens, the Louis Aragon municipal library will reopen this Saturday (7) after being closed for several days due to the presence of the insect “in its reading areas”. After a pest control treatment, a sniffer dog did not detect any bed bugs, allowing the establishment to reopen, the city’s mayor, Brigitte Fouré, told AFP.
Despite the reports, authorities have claimed that the phenomenon is being amplified by virality on social media, in the middle of a year in which the country is preparing to host the Olympics in July 2024. Transport Minister Clément Beaune stressed this week that “there is no increase” in the appearance of bed bugs, but the statements did not prevent paranoia from beginning to cross borders.
Algeria the country of origin of many French people or family members living in Europe has just announced “preventive measures” against the spread of the plague.
The events took on the dimensions of a state affair. “All ministries are working on this issue and have mobilized,” a government source admitted after an interministerial meeting at the Matignon Palace, the seat of the Cabinet.
72yearold pensioner MarieChristine Gesta tells AFP that she has spent the last year battling bed bugs that she discovered in her home after spending a few days in an infested hotel. “It ruined my life,” she explains, and reports that she now “looks everywhere again, including her shopping bag.”
Seeing the issue hit the front pages of newspapers “brought back bad memories,” the woman says. “I get itchy just thinking about it,” complains the woman.
On the streets, furniture believed to be infested is now packed in trash bags and labeled “With Bed Bugs.” “There are mattresses lined up on my street with little signs asking people not to touch them. “We are afraid of the ‘flea,’” Parisbased American author Alfredo Mineo told the Guardian.
Posttraumatic stress
“There is a small effect of collective panic, in which even people who do not have bed bugs are afraid of getting them, sometimes with a slightly obsessive side,” analyzes psychiatrist Antoine Pelissolo from the CHU HenriMondor in Créteil.
Those who have endured the drama are experiencing “almost posttraumatic stress syndrome,” observes Marie Effroy, director of the testing company EcoFlair and also president of the National Institute for the Study and Control of Bedbugs (Inelp). Those affected were so affected by the experience that EcoFlair had to train its employees in “customer stress management,” he continues.
These disinfection requests are reportedly increasing among both private individuals and public transport.
For example, on Friday, Montpellier’s public transport network, TAM, published photos of an “identification operation” showing an agent accompanied by a sniffer dog.