Paris – the city on the Seine that smells of café au lait, croissants and love. After Chanel, Dior and Camembert. After freshly baked baguette and plenty of other nice clichés. We love Paris, we love France. But precisely because so many things are so disproportionately good there, many people are amused by the drama that is currently unfolding in parts of the country. Because bed bugs seem to have taken over France – small, nasty beasts that bite the flesh of the French as well as wealthy travelers at night. Unpretty.
The presence of insects is nothing new; informed tourists have known for years that, especially in Paris, it is worth taking a particularly thorough look at hotel reviews before clicking “book”. But it hasn’t been as extreme as this year for a very, very long time. While President Macron calls for an emergency meeting, people online do what they do best: gossip.
And so on Twitter (or more recently And despite all our pity for the French, we can’t help but giggle a little at some of them.
But of course the topic is only funny as long as it doesn’t affect you. In every malicious tweet there is a concern that oneself will be affected at some point – after all, the annoying little animals are known to like to travel with them to foreign countries in their luggage. They have also been seen on night trains.
Maybe we should all show compassion rather than gloating… because there is unfortunately a real chance that someone in Germany could soon become acquainted with bed bugs.
