The Brief – Burn the bedbugs, France begs

An alleged spike in the number of bedbug infections across France has unexpectedly thrown the country into a political frenzy, making it the top priority for the government and opposition alike.

“Must we wait for your office to be infested before you finally react?” Mathilde Panot, a far-left lawmaker, asked Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne in Parliament, her hand squeezed around a small vial with bedbugs inside.

Panot’s theatrical take – with props – should not be taken lightly: Bedbugs have, quite literally, become the talk of the town.

Don’t take this as some random media outrage: It goes to the inherent sense of cleanliness of the French. Bedbugs are not just a nuisance, they are an affront.

In a way, it’s history catching up with us. Bedbugs have always been around because they like what humans like: calm and dark places, such as a bedroom, where they can lay their eggs at their own pace without fear of predators.

Eventually, bedbugs disappeared in the second half of the 1900s, in part due to the heavy-handed post-war use of DDT – Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane – spray to clean up homes, which nearly eradicated them all.

But now, they’re back with a vengeance: cinemas, trains, hotels… They seem to spread far and wide, ready to drive people mad, feeding off human blood and leaving rashes.

And there is no simple cure: They’ve become immune to close to all pest destruction products.

Your narrator can speak to the prevalence of bedbugs in people’s minds: Two of his movie plans were recently turned down by friends and family alike. Too dangerous, they said.

TV shows and interviews have reached new levels, too.

Bernard Werber, author of ‘The Mad Sexuality of Bedbugs’ – (yup, you read that right) – had TV broadcaster BFM viewers glued to their seats as he described bedbugs’ “hot sex life, with over 200 sexual rapports every day [and] a gigantic amount of sperm released”. “Only a few humans would manage such a pace,” he added insightfully.

This national obsession with bedbugs is spreading quickly. There’s a COVID scare in the air, and it’s become common to see people spraying their metro seats with disinfectant.

Only this time, political amateurship just isn’t allowed.

Where opposition has been quick to use bedbugs to criticise Paris’ general hygienic disarray – in their words – and the government’s lack of any full-fledged strategy to keep the infection rates in check, Borne announced she would gather all relevant ministers for a crisis meeting on Friday (6 October).

With her eyes on the 2024 Olympic Games and her reputation on the line, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo called for a large-scale forum on pest control.

MPs belonging to President Emmanuel Macron’s political family want a cross-party bill that would, among other things, grant relevant services the overriding right to enter people’s homes for a heavy clean: Privacy rights be damned when one must keep the Nation sanitised!

Some of the points made are sound: Green leader Marine Tondelier warns that not all households can afford specialised cleaning services – which cost an average of €866 – and public support might prove necessary. Left-wing leaders want house insurance policies to cover the costs.

Other ideas are less insightful.

In what turned into a much-derided intervention, Pascal Praud, anchor at the far-right CNews broadcaster, directly linked new pest increases and immigration. “I’m asking all questions,” he said.

Olivier Marleix, a conservative lawmaker, added earlier this week: “If the situation in migrant [sic] camps can raise sanitary issues, then it must be discussed.”

There has been no evidence to back any link between pest infections and migration – conditions in shelters and camps can be so poor that refugees are probably the first victims of this bug spread – but it sure helps fuel the anti-migrant fire that has been burning stronger than ever in the country.

Plus, a parliamentary report published in 2020 already pointed to an absence of relevant government strategy, prompting some to declare that the mother of all infection waves has actually been in the making for years.

The speed with which this new pest situation has turned into a frenzy says something about the state of French politics: It’s a handy distraction and an easy way out from a reality that says complex files are due to come through in the autumn.

The budget bill introduced last week has spending cuts written all over it, while a new immigration legislative package, pushed back repeatedly, is set to enshrine divisions.

And new money foreseen for climate financing is raising fears that cash will be lacking elsewhere and will never reach the poorer segments of society.

There’s never been a better time for bedbugs to bite back.

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