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Factcheck: Did the Paris deputy mayor really say ‘no-one is safe’ from bedbugs?

It's the quote that has dominated UK and US news reporting of France's bedbug problem - but did the Paris deputy mayor truly say that 'no-one is safe'?

Factcheck: Did the Paris deputy mayor really say 'no-one is safe' from bedbugs?
First Deputy Mayor of Paris Emmanuel Gregoire in September 2022 (Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP)

Reports of a rising number of bedbug infestations have been heavily reported in French media – egged on by politicians – and have now crossed both the Channel and the Atlantic to be reported in English-language media.

You can see our in-detail look at how bad the problem truly is – and whether it is in fact any worse than in other countries – here.

But undoubtedly one of the reasons that the story got so much coverage is the headline-worthy quote from the deputy mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, who apparently said ‘no-one is safe’.

The dramatic assessment – worthy of a disaster movie – certainly sounds good, but is it actually what he said?

Grégoire undoubtedly believes that bedbugs are a problem in his city, and has written to French prime minister Elisabeth Borne to demand an urgent, national action plan.

He writes: “The State must urgently bring together all the stakeholders concerned in order to deploy an action plan commensurate with this scourge while France is preparing to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024.”

The ‘no-one is safe’ quote comes from an interview that Grégoire did with French TV channel LCI and his exact words were: “Personne n’est à l’abri“.

This is perhaps best translated as ‘no-one is immune’, or ‘no-one is unaffected’ or more literally ‘no-one is sheltered’ –  the most common use of the word abri is used to describe a shelter such as an air-raid shelter or ‘sans-abri‘ to describe someone as homeless (or ‘without shelter’).

It’s not a million miles away from ‘no-one is safe’ – but it doesn’t carry the same connotation of bedbugs posing a risk to health. Bedbugs can cause itchy bites or blisters. They are undoubtedly extremely annoying and it can be hard to sleep if you have an infestation in your home, but they do not spread diseases or cause other health problems.

It’s also important to look at the context of Grégoire’s words – he’s answering a question about whether bedbugs are confined to a certain area or are a more general problem.

He says that they’re everywhere and ‘no-one is immune’ – which is why he is calling on the government to take a nationwide approach to the problem, which he says cannot be tackled by local authorities alone since bedbugs are often spread between areas by travellers, tourists or even commuters. 

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FRENCH ELECTIONS

French election breakdown: TV clash, polling latest and ‘poo’ Le Pen

From the polls latest to the first big TV election clash, via a lot of questions about the French Constitution and the president's future - here's the situation 17 days on from Emmanuel Macron's shock election announcement.

French election breakdown: TV clash, polling latest and 'poo' Le Pen

During the election period we will be publishing a bi-weekly ‘election breakdown’ to help you keep up with the latest developments. You can receive these as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

It’s now been 17 days since Macron’s surprise call for snap parliamentary elections, and four days until the first round of voting.

TV debates

The hotly-anticipated first TV debate of the election on Tuesday night turned out to be an ill-tempered affair with a lot of interruptions and men talking over each other.

The line of the night went to the left representative Manuel Bompard – who otherwise struggled to make much of an impact – when he told far-right leader Jordan Bardella (whose Italian ancestors migrated to France several generations back): “When your personal ancestors arrived in France, your political ancestors said exactly the same thing to them. I find that tragic.”

But perhaps the biggest question of all is whether any of this matters? The presidential election debate between Macron and Marine Le Pen back in 2017 is widely credited with influencing the campaign as Macron exposed her contradictory policies and economic illiteracy.

However a debate ahead of the European elections last month between Bardella and prime minister Gabriel Attal was widely agreed to have been ‘won’ by Attal, who also managed to expose flaws and contradictions in the far right party’s policies. Nevertheless, the far-right went on to convincingly beat the Macronists at the polls.

Has the political scene simply moved on so that Bardella’s brief and fact-light TikTok videos convince more people than a two-hour prime-time TV debate?

You can hear the team from The Local discussing all the election latest on the Talking France podcast – listen here or on the link below

Road to chaos

Just over two weeks ago when Macron called this election, he intended to call the bluff of the French electorate – did they really want a government made up of Marine Len Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party?

Well, latest polling suggests that a large portion of French people want exactly that, and significantly fewer people want to continue with a Macron government.

With the caveat that pollsters themselves say this is is a difficult election to call, current polling suggests RN would take 35 percent of the vote, the leftist alliance Nouveau Front Populaire 30 percent and Macron’s centrists 20 percent.

This is potentially bad news for everyone, as those figures would give no party an overall majority in parliament and would instead likely usher in an era of political chaos.

The questions discussed in French conversation and media have now moved on from ‘who will win the election?’ to distinctly more technical concerns like – what exactly does the Constitution say about the powers of a president without a government? Can France have a ‘caretaker government’ in the long term? Is it time for a 6th republic?.

The most over-used phrase in French political discourse this week? Sans précédent (unprecedented).

Démission

From sans précédent to sans président – if this election leads to total chaos, will Macron resign? It’s certainly being discussed, but he says he will not.

For citizens of many European parliamentary democracies it seems virtually automatic that the president would resign if he cannot form a government, but the French system is very different and several French presidents have continued in post despite being obliged to appoint an opponent as prime minister.

READ ALSO Will Macron resign in case of an election disaster?

The only president of the Fifth Republic to resign early was Charles de Gaulle – the trigger was the failure of a referendum on local government, but it may be that he was simply fed up; he was 78 years old and had already been through an attempted coup and the May 1968 general strike which paralysed the country. He died a year after leaving office.

Caca craft

She might be riding high in the polls, but not everyone is enamoured of Le Pen, it seems, especially not in ‘lefty’ eastern Paris – as seen by this rather neatly crafted Marine Le Pen flag stuck into a lump of dog poo left on the pavement.

Thanks to spotter Helen Massy-Beresford, who saw this in Paris’s 20th arrondissement.

You can find all the latest election news HERE, or sign up to receive these election breakdowns as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

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