France is bitten by a fear of bedbugs as it prepares to host Summer Olympics
France PM to hold emergency meeting
Paris (AP): They creep, they crawl, they feast on your blood as you sleep. They may travel in your clothes or backpacks to find another person worth dining on on the subway, or at the cinema. Bedbugs go where you go, and they have become a nightmare haunting France for weeks.
The government has been forced to step in to calm an increasingly anxious nation that will host the Olympic Games in just over nine months a prime venue for infestations of the crowd-loving insects.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called a meeting of ministers for Friday to tackle the bedbug crisis. The country's transport minister, Clement Beaune, met this week with transportation companies to draw up a plan for monitoring and disinfecting and to try to ease what some have called a national psychosis inflamed by the media.
"There is no resurgence of cases," Beaune said, telling reporters that 37 cases reported in the bus and Metro system and a dozen others on trains proved unfounded as did viral videos on social media of tiny creatures supposedly burrowing in the seat of a fast train.
Still, bedbugs have plagued France and other countries for decades. The insects the size of an apple seed that neither jump nor fly get around as easily as people travel from city to city and nation to nation, and they have become increasingly resistant to insecticides. If that's not enough to make you itchy: Bedbugs can stay alive for a year without a meal.
Without any blood, "they can slow their metabolism and just wait for us," said Jean-Michel Berenger, an entomologist who raises bedbugs in his lab in the infectious diseases section of the Mediterranee University Hospital in Marseille. The carbon dioxide that all humans give off "will reactivate them and they'll come back to bite you."
For now, Berenger said, this much is certain: "Bedbugs have infested the media."
Yet bad dreams are most often fed by a touch of reality.
More than one household in 10 in France was infested with bedbugs between 2017 and 2022, according to a report by the National Agency for Health and Food Safety. The agency relied on a poll by Ipsos to query people on a topic that many prefer to avoid discussing because they fear going public with a bedbug problem will stigmatize them.
But silence is a mistake, experts say. No social category is immune to finding bedbugs in their clothing, blankets or mattresses.
"It's not at all a hygiene problem. The only thing that interests (bedbugs) is your blood," said Berenger, the entomologist. "Whether you live in a dump or a palace, it's the same thing to them."
Business is booming for companies that eradicate the little brown insects, a process that often starts with detection by dogs trained to sniff out the special odor that bedbugs give off. If an infestation is confirmed, technicians move in to zap the area with super hot steam. Heat and cold are enemies of bedbugs. One French government recommendation for victims is to put well-wrapped clothes in the freezer.
Kevin Le Mestre, director of Lutte Antinuisible, said his company is getting "dozens and dozens" of calls. In the past, he said, people often didn't react, even to bites.
"Now, as soon as they spot a bite, they don't ask themselves whether it really comes from bedbugs or not. They call us straight away," said a pest control technician for the company, Lucas Pradalier, as he disinfected a Paris apartment. A sniffer dog detected bedbugs in a baseboard and between floorboards.
The French public began moving into panic mode about a month ago after reports of bedbugs at a Paris movie theater. Videos began popping up on social networks, showing little insects on trains and buses.
Now, both Socialists and centrists of President Emmanuel Macron's party want to propose bills to fight bedbugs. Far-left lawmaker Mathilde Panot recently brought a vial of bedbugs to the Parliament to chastise the government for, in her view, letting the creatures run rampant.
Bedbugs, an age-old curse on humans, seemingly disappeared with treatment by harsh, now-banned insecticides. They made a reappearance in the 1950s, especially in densely populated cities like New York. And they travel the world thanks to commerce and tourism.
That adds up to a bedbug challenge for the Paris Olympics starting in July.
"All human population movements are profitable for bedbugs because they go with us, to hotels, in transport," said Berenger.
Beaune, the transport minister, is hopeful that steps can be taken to ease the public's fear. But, he conceded, "It's hell, these bedbugs."
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Real Madrid fines Valverde and Tchouaméni half a million euros each for altercation
Barcelona (AP): Real Madrid slapped players Federico Valverde and Aurélien Tchouaméni with half-a-million-euro ($588,000) fines on Friday for their altercation during practice.
The massive fines came a day after the midfielders tussled when the team trained. Valverde said in a post on social media on Thursday that no punches were thrown. But Valverde knocked his head on a table and he suffered a small cut that required a brief hospital visit.
On social media, Valverde initially called it a “meaningless fight” with a teammate and said “everything has been blown out of proportion."
His employers, however, considered it a significant enough breach of team discipline to nail both Valverde and Tchouaméni with fines that bite even the bank account of a top soccer player. The half-a-million euro penalties reflect the reputational damage the club was enduring in a chaotic end to a disappointing season.
In a statement, the 15-time European champion said its disciplinary action was concluded after both players expressed to the club “their complete remorse for what happened and apologized to one another.”
Madrid added they also apologized to their teammates, the coaching staff and club supporters, as well as showing their willingness to accept whatever disciplinary action the club deemed “opportune.”
Tchouaméni was back training with Madrid on Friday, two days before they play at Barcelona in a clasico. Madrid has to win otherwise Barcelona will be crowned La Liga champion.
After being notified of the fine, he posted a public apology to the club and its fans on social media.
“What happened this week in training is unacceptable,” Tchouaméni wrote. "I say this while thinking about the example we are expected to set for young people, whether in football or at school.
“Above all, I am sorry for the image we projected of the club.”
Valverde was not at practice due to the head knock.
Both players are set to play in the World Cup next month, with Tchouaméni playing for France and Valverde for Uruguay.
Chaotic end to a poor season
===================
The run-in between the players, who for seasons have played side by side in Madrid's midfield, came after they argued this week in previous training sessions. But tempers boiled over on Thursday. Spanish media was rife with reports that the players previously disagreed over the club's decision to let coach Xabi Alonso go after just months on the job.
It was not the only altercation involving Madrid players during training this week. Álvaro Carreras confirmed he was in a “minor” incident with a teammate. Spanish media said he and fellow defender Antonio Rüdiger got into a scuffle.
Álvaro Arbeloa, the coach who was promoted from Madrid's reserve team when Alonso was fired in January, will face tough questions on what went wrong inside the changing room when he gives a press conference on Saturday ahead of the clasico at Camp Nou.
Madrid is facing a second consecutive campaign without a major trophy amid rumors in the Spanish media that club president Florentino Pérez is considering bringing back Jose Mourinho to straighten out his underperforming team.
