Infestation Nation: Don't Let Zee Bedbugs Bite

Guess who's coming for a sleepover? And to the cinema? And the metro?

Apparently, drought and plague were not enough. The fates have now visited upon Paris an infestation of bedbugs and it seems we can’t escape from the worst apocalypse timeline.

While there is some debate about whether France has a growing bedbug problem, that hasn’t stopped the little critters from becoming an all-consuming media sensation that has morphed into a political controversy. Politicians are demanding that someone do something about this scourage and meetings have been convened and brows have been furrowed.

What adds an extra layer of dread to The Great Bedbug Crisis of 2023 is that the French word for the insect is punaise de lit, which somehow sounds like a more Biblical judgment than bedbug which is downright cuddly by comparison.

It would appear the bedbug hysteria began last month when Twitter user Dana Del Rey posted two photos from car 6 of her TGV train at Paris-Est station: "Could these be bedbugs on your trains @SNCFVoyageurs @SNCFConnect ?????"

The tweet was viewed more than 2.6 million times in 2 days.

Internet entomologists debated whether these were pictures of bedbugs, but who has time for facts? When someone tweeted about bedbugs in a movie theater and bedbugs on the metro, it was panic time.

Soon, the media was full of joyful references to la suceuse de sang (bloodsucker). Here’s a fun fact from France 24:

“One-tenth of all French households are believed to have had a bedbug problem over the past few years, usually requiring a pest control operation costing several hundreds of euros (dollars) that often needs to be repeated.”

France 24 also helpfully explained that bedbugs “come out at night to feed on human blood.” Nice. So, we are possibly being overtaken by the vampires of the insect world who, I guess, have a running competition with the mosquito gangs as to who can quaff the most human claret each day.

How bonkers is coverage? As I sat down to write this, Le Parisien published 6 punaise-related stories: a high school closed for bedbugs, the Paris city council debates whether more action is needed, a nursery school is closed, French schools are freaking out about bedbugs.

Alas, the Anglo media has discovered this horror show:

CNN: 'No one is safe': France vows action as bedbugs sweep Paris

Reuters: France races to stamp out bedbug 'scourge' before Olympics

The Guardian: Bedbug crisis sparks political row in Paris as insect ‘scourge’ continues

But the greatest humiliation of all came in the form of Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight Show, who dressed as a beret-wearing, baguette-carrying, chest-bearing parody of President Emmanuel Macron and sang a ditty about France’s bedbug problem:

"These bugs can get in anywhere, even chest hair, so clean them with a spritz of Febreze. But it's fashion week, Louis V and Gucci, full of celebrities, Chalamet Timothée…But those OMG bedbugs, they're really icky, they're everywhere, just like Swift and Kelce." (Frenchies: Give me a shout if you need this last reference explained.)

To The Bedbug Barricades!

As news of the bedbugs — if not the bedbugs themselves — spread, politicos seized the moment. One haughty fellow from the left-wing La France Insoumise party came to parliament carrying a jar with bedbugs. (Questions: Where does one acquire a jar full of bedbugs? And what insane individual put them in that jar?) Anyhoo, the representative from Clevertown said the government had been “caught napping.” (Get it?)

Paris deputy mayor Emmanuel Grégoire called the problem a "national emergency." In a letter to Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne he wrote: "The State must urgently bring together all the stakeholders concerned in order to deploy an action plan commensurate with this scourge while France is preparing to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024."

And then there was the far-right pundit who blamed dirty immigrants for importing the bedbug plague.

On one hand, government officials and transportation officials have sought to reassure the fragile populace that most of these reports have not checked out and there is not really an increase in bedbugs. Still, government meetings are planned throughout the week to find ways to craft some kind of response.

France 24: French government launches battle plan against bedbug invasion

RFI: Paris launches emergency plan to fight spread of bed bugs

Whether or not the bedbug population is exploding, they remain a problem. Three years ago, France launched an anti-bedbug campaign that included the creation of the Institut National d’Étude et de Lutte contre la Punaise de lit (INELP). (National Institute of the Study and Fight Against Bedbugs, a name that just rolls off the tongue.). That must be a fun thing to have on your business card. Imagine a lifetime of introducing yourself at cocktail parties and watching people slowly back away.

Alas, the French are becoming accustomed to such pests. From the time we moved to France in 2014, the rentrée scolaire (the start of the school year) is also the rentrée of lice. Which, again, sounds even worse in French because lice are called poux. Which is pronounced pooh and conjures terrible images if you are anglophone.

Poux season is a festive time in which pharmacies decorate their store windows with joyful reminders of this tradition.

We have entire bags of lice combs and Pouxit in plastic bags in our bathroom, battle scars that serve as reminders of years of combat. Now, I suppose, we must prepare ourselves for the Battle of the Bedbugs.

Aux armes, citoyens!

Chris O’Brien

Le Pecq