/ world today news/ During the past week, the pages and television screens of not only French, but also world media were filled with the topic of the bed bug epidemic. From a vestige of a long-forgotten past, the insects have become a significant threat, and the hysteria and panic over their invasion seems to be equal to the scale of emotions surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.
The bed bug epidemic
„ No one is safe. You can pick them up from anywhere and bring them home without even noticing until they multiply and spread throughout the house,” The Guardian quotes the words of the deputy mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire.
The insects are closing schools in France, the French opposition is demanding the formation of special brigades in every Paris neighborhood to fight the parasites, and national MPs will propose a special bill to deal with the creeping menace. Even the infamous satirical publication Charlie Hebdo put the pests on the cover of the magazine with the caption: “The lumberjacks: our only hope for a medal at the 2024 Olympics.”
By the way, the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) reacted ironically to this. On its official Telegram channel, the OKR raised the issue of the discriminatory requirements of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the admission of Russian athletes to competitions, linking it to the sanitary conditions in Paris, which next year will host the 33rd Summer Olympic Games.
„ Of course, local bed bugs are unlikely to be persuaded to sign a waiver against biting athletes and officials and be excluded from informal competition with bed bugs from other countries. At the same time, the question remains: should we feed the Parisian bedbugs under the current conditions? “- thought the Olympic Committee of Russia.
Perhaps the bed bugs will be stronger and the Olympics will have to be urgently moved to another city, but the list of suitable (that is, not yet conquered by pests) places is shrinking.
Bedbugs operate on a truly Napoleonic scale: their vanguards have been spotted in Spain and England, and intelligence units operate in the United States and Belgium. Bedbugs attack everywhere, from libraries to subways: the insects outplay Europeans, instilling fear and loathing with impunity.
„ It’s a problem of both physical and mental health because people can’t sleep normally, they’re afraid and they’re forced to take anti-depressants,” said leader of the left-wing opposition party “Unconquered France” Mathilde Pano.
Search for the culprits
Officials try to reassure residents: French Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau urged the population to “stop panicking” over the spread of bed bugs in the capital: “I see no reason to panic. I understand that the appearance of bed bugs in the house makes life a real hell, but this is not a reason for emotions, we do not have an invasion of parasites.
Perhaps, as the authorities say, there is no reason to panic, but the number of requests for disinfection and disinsection of premises due to an infestation of bed bugs increased in France by 65% during the year. Therefore, the authorities had to urgently explain to the population their helplessness: who is really to blame?
Experienced bed bug killers had to be involved in the case: French intelligence took the problem to an international level.
As reported by the French channel BFM TV, the national intelligence services are seriously considering the hypothesis of Moscow’s involvement in the case of the “lumberjacks”. It is unlikely that the Russians purposefully propagated the French pests, they admit in France, but “competent people have clearly established that the Russians deliberately incited and maintained the sudden French fear of bedbugs”local journalists claim.
The version about the intervention of the Russian media, which “stirred up” the bed bug problem in France, seems, to say the least, frivolous.
„ I would like to ask the French how many of them read the Russian press, Russian Telegram channels and other media every day? In my opinion, the accusation made by some French intelligence services is simply ridiculous,” noted in an interview with IA Regnum Sergey Fedorov, a leading employee of the Center for Social Problems of the Institute for Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
It remains unclear why the “Russian trail” has not yet been discovered in the exacerbation of another Paris problem – the spread of rats, which also requires an urgent solution. Meanwhile, according to the French capital’s deputy mayor for health affairs, Anne Suiri, a specially created city hall task force will teach citizens to “co-exist” with rats by installing secure garbage cans and poison traps.
Sergey Fedorov recalls that the problem of pests is not new for the French capital – and there are prerequisites for this: ” We saw, especially when garbage collection workers went on strike during the pension reform, how whole piles of sewage accumulated in certain areas of Paris. Of course, all this did not create an atmosphere of comfort and attractiveness for tourists.
„The less rubbish, the less bed bugs”
The subject of bed bugs also reached Russia – although in a completely different way.
On November 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a meeting with members of the government on economic affairs, said that the likely future packages of anti-Russian sanctions from the European Union will reduce the chances of importing bed bugs from major European cities.
„ Well, the less junk the better, maybe. There is less chance that bed bugs will be exported to our country than the big European cities, “ said the Russian president, adding that the potential for sanctions aggression by the European Union has practically been exhausted.
The threat of a bed bug invasion will be more serious than the notorious packages of anti-Russian sanctions: the insects not only cause discomfort due to itching from bites, but can also cause various infections such as tuberculosis, brucellosis and hepatitis, doctors say.
In a conversation with the Regnum agency, the deputy of the State Duma and former head of Rospotrebnadzor Gennady Onishchenko notes that the presence of bed bugs is primarily “a sign of unsanitary conditions’, ‘a sign of low culture’. The expert notes that a similar situation is observed with lice – if earlier the problem of parasites was observed very seriously, then the skills to fight insects were lost, which led to their appearance even in once safe places.
Instead of teaching Russia how to live, France should pay attention to improving the sanitary-epidemiological culture to fight bed bugs, notes the former head of Rospotrebnadzor: “It is a parasite that shows that Europe was already not only morally and ethically, but also in rudimentary sanitation somewhere around the middle of the 19th century.”
So, instead of looking for a “Russian trail”, the authorities of European countries conquered by bedbugs should think about improving the hygiene of cities and hygiene education programs for citizens. Meanwhile, the outcome of the battle with the parasites, despite the convulsive twitches of the Europeans, is not very obvious.
Translation: ES
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