France has been forced to close seven schools over rising concerns over an infestation of bedbugs, Gabriel Attal, the Education Minister, said on Friday.
Attal told France 5 television, “Bedbugs were detected at various levels in… I believe 17 institutions, and currently as I speak to you, seven institutions are closed for this reason.”
The government of France this week has held a series of meetings to discuss the increasing number of reported bedbug cases at a time when France is set to host the Rugby World Cup and prepare to host the Paris 2024 Olympics.
the Education Ministry said earlier on Friday in a statement to AFP that five schools with a total of 1,500 students had been shut.
Authorities announced earlier this week, two schools — one in Marseille and the other in Villefranche-sur-Saone outside Lyon in southeastern France — had been closed for cleaning.
Attal said, “We have almost 60,000 institutions and we’re only talking about a few dozen here, but it’s true that cases are piling up. An immediate response is needed, so that we can have institutions treated within 24 hours.”
He said a list of “approved and recognized” firms had been prepared in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and regional health agencies “so that the heads of schools can have the contacts and have them intervene very quickly.”
A municipal library in the northern city of Amiens is scheduled to reopen on Saturday after being shut for several days after bedbugs were spotted in public reading spaces, Brigitte Foure, the city’s mayor, told AFP.
She said that a sniffer dog detected no trace of the pests after the library was treated.
One-tenth of all France’s households are considered to have had a blood-sucking insect issue over the past few years, usually needing a pest control operation costing several hundred euros which usually requires repeated.
Bedbugs have been seen in the Paris metro, high-speed trains, and at Paris’s Charles De Gaulle Airport.
