Horror bedbug outbreak threatens Paris Olympics as official says no one is safe
As the French capital prepares to welcome millions of visitors for the 2024 Summer Olympics, there are fears that a "scourge" of bedbugs will overshadow the games.
Paris’s deputy mayor, Emmanuel Grégoire said "no one is safe" as infestations have continued to rise due to an uptick in travel and increasing resistance to pesticides. Skin-crawling footage has gone viral of the bugs not just on beds but on public transport, cinemas and hospitals too. Mr Gregoire wrote a letter on behalf of City Hall calling on Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne to act on the "scourge". He wrote: "Bed bugs are a public health problem and should be reported as such. The state must urgently bring together all concerned in order to enact an action plan appropriate to this scourge as all of France prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024."
Bedbugs are small brown insects, close in size to apple seeds, that hide in mattresses and box springs and emerge at night to bite and feed on blood. They often then crawl rapidly to clothing and luggage, hence them spreading to other areas such as public transport. They are also a large economic strain, with it costing an average of €866 (£750) per household to eradicate and an annual national average of €230 million (£199m). In August, someone posted pictures on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, showing what she said were markings on her body from bed bugs in her seat at a Paris cinema.
Mr Gregoire told Franceinfo last week that the treatment against bed bugs should be included in home insurance deals — in a sign of how bad it has got. French Transportation Minister Clément Beaune wrote on X that he planned to meet with transport operators to discuss the issue which is causing havoc on trains. Last week, a college student uploaded footage of what appeared to be bedbugs on the train. The little brown insects showed up very visibly on the blue-and-white striped chairs of the train. The unnamed student said in a video interview translated by Le Parisien: "It was very anxiety-inducing. Everyone looked at their seats and looked at their skin to see if they had been bitten by a bedbug."
About 1 in 10 French households were infested with bedbugs between 2017 and 2022, according to a recent survey from the French health agency ANSES. The report said: "Bed bugs are a costly nuisance for households in metropolitan France, considering the expense of treatment and the psychological impact." It added that bedbugs are not known to transmit disease when they bite humans, but they are associated with a lower quality of life, sleep disorders and mental health issues.
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ANSES also said one of the main reasons for the surge in infestation is the tourism industry. It added that rental platforms for private accommodation, such as Airbnb, had potentially "contributed to the spread of bedbugs" as a result of "increasing the pressure from tourism" throughout France. Johanna Fite from the agency told CNN: "We are observing more and more bedbug populations which are resistant, so there is no miracle treatment to get rid of them. It’s mainly due to the movement of people, populations travelling, the fact that people stay in short-term accommodation and bring back bedbugs in their suitcases or luggage."
Sophie Marie Niang, who lives between Paris and Cambridge, England, where she is studying for a doctorate in sociology, told NBC News that the infestation makes you feel that "everything is going wrong" for the city ahead of the Games. She added: "People torched Olympic worksites in protest during the riots and Paris is swarming with bedbugs. It does not bode well."
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