‘Bedbugs don’t discriminate’: Paris ‘scourge’ sparks fears of international infestation

Bedbugs in the seams of a sofa bed, in L'Hay-les-Roses, near Paris. Photograph: Stéphanie Lecocq/Reuters

Paris is burning its luggage and bed linen as it battles a “scourge” of bedbugs, stoking fears of infestation around the world as pest controllers report an uptick in inquiries and transport operators and hoteliers seek to assuage concerns.

The city of light is reportedly under siege from the nocturnal bloodsuckers, leading the French transport minister, Clément Beaune, to meet transport operators. “It’s a real nightmare,” says Yacine, a schoolteacher in Paris who declined to give his surname. “I’m so afraid to take the Métro, I don’t go to the cinema – it’s very alarmant.”