Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon, and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bungelung Calcoton woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily Os. It's Friday,
Speaker 2: the sixth of October.
Speaker 3: I'm Zara and I'm Emma Gillespie. I'm the deputy editor
Speaker 3: here at the Daily.
Speaker 2: Os and today we've got something a little different for
Speaker 2: you because it is Friday after all, right.
Speaker 3: M yep, the rumors are true. There is a crisis
Speaker 3: unfolding in France and I am literally itching to talk
Speaker 3: about bed bugs.
Speaker 2: Is Paris a city of love or a city of bugs?
Speaker 2: I'd be a bit reluctant to be sitting on seats
Speaker 2: where I don't.
Speaker 3: Need to be sitting.
Speaker 1: In Paris Olympics less than a year away.
Speaker 2: Authorities have declared war on the parasites. That's right. If
Speaker 2: you are still with us and not feeling too itchy,
Speaker 2: France is dealing with a huge bedbug infestation. It sparked
Speaker 2: widespread public health concerns, forced schools to close, and raised
Speaker 2: concerns ahead of the twenty twenty four Paris Olympics. We'll
Speaker 2: tell you everything you need to know soon. That first
Speaker 2: m What is making headlines today.
Speaker 3: Australia's new one dollar coins featuring King Charles the Third
Speaker 3: will begin circulating before the end of the year. It
Speaker 3: follows an announcement by the Royal Australian Mint on Thursday
Speaker 3: with our first look at the new coin. Following the
Speaker 3: death of Queen Elizabeth, Other coins, as well as banknotes
Speaker 3: with the new monarch, will be progressively rolled out next year,
Speaker 3: but older currency with the queen's image can still continue
Speaker 3: to be used.
Speaker 2: FIFA has given Australia less than a month to challenge
Speaker 2: a bid from Saudi Arabia for the twenty thirty four
Speaker 2: Men's World Cup. It comes after football's global governing body
Speaker 2: announced the hosts for the twenty thirty World Cup. The
Speaker 2: tournament will be hosted by six host nations spanning Europe,
Speaker 2: Africa and South America, coinciding with the events one hundredth anniversary.
Speaker 3: September twenty twenty three was the world's hottest month on record.
Speaker 3: That's according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Speaker 3: Average temperatures around the world reached close to sixteen point
Speaker 3: five degrees celsius last month. That's half a degree above
Speaker 3: the previous warmest September temperature.
Speaker 2: And the good news, the Men's Quicker World Cup is
Speaker 2: officially underway. Defending champions England faced off against New Zealand
Speaker 2: in the opening match of the tournament, with Australia to
Speaker 2: play hosts India on Sunday night. Australia is the most
Speaker 2: successful nation at the World Cup, having won five tournaments
Speaker 2: in the past.
Speaker 3: France's government is holding crisis talks as the country grapples
Speaker 3: to take control of a bedbug infestation.
Speaker 2: We are seeing unfortunate for us and hearing a lot
Speaker 2: of reports about bedbugs literally everywhere, on trains, in movie
Speaker 2: theaters and at airports. What on earth is going on?
Speaker 3: So, as you mentioned, social media has been inundated in
Speaker 3: the last few weeks with images and videos of people
Speaker 3: from all over France, but especially in Paris, where the
Speaker 3: outbreak is particularly bad, sharing their bedbug discoveries. There are
Speaker 3: some truly horrifying fines. And if you're feeling brave enough
Speaker 3: to search the pune de l hashtag that's the French
Speaker 3: word for bedbugs, you can see them yourself. But we're
Speaker 3: talking bedbugs in cities, rural areas, in schools, on transport.
Speaker 3: To give you a sense of the scale of this,
Speaker 3: a recent study found more than one in ten French
Speaker 3: households have a bedbug problem. Now that study was based
Speaker 3: on data between twenty seventeen and twenty twenty two, so
Speaker 3: that number could be even higher. Now given this outbreak.
Speaker 2: I'm very lucky to have never had to deal with
Speaker 2: bedbugs firsthand. So can you tell me a bit about
Speaker 2: these bugs themselves? Like what is the major issue here?
Speaker 3: So first of all, I'll tell you what bedbugs actually are.
Speaker 3: So we're talking about tiny parasites. They're around five millimeters long,
Speaker 3: so like you know, smaller than an apple seed, and
Speaker 3: they live in places like mattresses, you know, hence the
Speaker 3: name bedbugs couches. They like dark, quiet places, and they
Speaker 3: feed on human blood, it has to be said, mainly
Speaker 3: at night. And at that point they become larger in size,
Speaker 3: dark in color. They lay lots of tiny eggs in
Speaker 3: our mattresses and couches, and they hatch and then the
Speaker 3: cycle continues. But they also move around a lot, usually
Speaker 3: on us humans as their transport, and that's part of
Speaker 3: the problem. And when it comes to these infestations, the
Speaker 3: newborn bedbugs are barely visible to humans. So France's health
Speaker 3: department has actually flagged that this week and it said
Speaker 3: by the time and infestation is detected, the outbreak may
Speaker 3: already be quite significant.
Speaker 2: That is a visual that I didn't think I needed,
Speaker 2: but there you go. So how do people usually discover
Speaker 2: they've got a bedbug outbreak? So some people.
Speaker 3: Might notice bedbug bites on their skin, itchy red bumps,
Speaker 3: kind of like small mosquito bites, or you might see
Speaker 3: signs of them in your bedding. And speaking of images
Speaker 3: that are disturbing, this image is of rusty or reddish
Speaker 3: stains on bedsheets or mattresses caused by the bugs being squished.
Speaker 3: And then there are those people who find actual live
Speaker 3: bedbugs in their homes, in which case you know, there's
Speaker 3: no mistaking it. You are in bedbug trouble.
Speaker 2: You are okay. So let's take this back to France,
Speaker 2: because that's the reason we're talking about it today. So
Speaker 2: how have things escalated in France this week? How does
Speaker 2: there become you know, this major nationwide issue.
Speaker 3: So we've really seen this evolve in Frants not just
Speaker 3: into a public health issue, but also into a political
Speaker 3: one with plenty of leaders, you know, kind of trying
Speaker 3: to get the government's attention to take this seriously. So
Speaker 3: the Deputy mayor of Paris, his name is Emmanuel Gregoire,
Speaker 3: he wants a government task force to be established to
Speaker 3: manage this outbreak, which he says is significantly widespread. He
Speaker 3: told local TV no one is safe from catching bedbugs
Speaker 3: or from bringing them home. And in Francis federal government,
Speaker 3: an opposition MP even brought a small plastic vial of
Speaker 3: bedbugs to a sitting to raise awareness of the issue.
Speaker 2: I would love to know how he saurce that, like
Speaker 2: it just went home quart a bug brought it into
Speaker 2: work the next day.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine.
Speaker 2: Okay, so someone is bringing in a vial of bugs, right,
Speaker 2: and you know there's this political pressure that's mounting. How
Speaker 2: has the government actually responded to those calls?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So this week the French government said it would
Speaker 3: meeting with multiple cabinet ministers to discuss the best ways
Speaker 3: to take action, and at the same time we've got
Speaker 3: Franci's transport minister who has met with transport and airport operators.
Speaker 3: He announced sniffer dogs from that meeting to help inspect
Speaker 3: trains on the Paris Metro and also across the country
Speaker 3: for bedbugs, but he denies that any bed bugs are
Speaker 3: on trains, despite videos on social media telling us maybe
Speaker 3: a bit of a different story there. Transport operators will
Speaker 3: also boost health procedures to try and tackle the issue,
Speaker 3: but there really is no quick fix when it comes
Speaker 3: to getting rid of bedbugs, so it could be quite
Speaker 3: a while before they're able to get this under control.
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of talk about the Paris Olympics,
Speaker 2: and I want to understand what the concern there is,
Speaker 2: mostly because I'm taking my honeymoon at the time that
Speaker 2: that was hapening. I just really want to know if
Speaker 2: it's going to be under control by then.
Speaker 3: I knew we'd find a way to give you reason
Speaker 3: to care about the bed buds exactly.
Speaker 2: It is selfish and self indulgent.
Speaker 3: So Paris is hosting the Olympics, the Summer Olympics next
Speaker 3: June and with so many visitors coming to Paris for that,
Speaker 3: you know, from tourists to athletes. The city is expecting
Speaker 3: a mass of people, and the Deputy mayor is sort
Speaker 3: of saying that this is going to become a health
Speaker 3: and safety issue for the Games, and he wrote an
Speaker 3: open letter to Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, urging
Speaker 3: the government to put in an action plan specifically ahead
Speaker 3: of the Olympics. But you know, that is still a
Speaker 3: while off. In the meantime, we've got things like the
Speaker 3: Rugby World Cup underway in France right now. Paris Fashion
Speaker 3: Week is happening too, so the fallout from that will
Speaker 3: give a decent indication of, you know, what they're up
Speaker 3: against when it comes to hosting thousands of international visitors
Speaker 3: at a time. For now, though, you know, there are
Speaker 3: potentially millions of French residents dealing with this problem in
Speaker 3: their homes.
Speaker 2: Okay, so speaking of the World Cup and Fashion Week,
Speaker 2: has the problem spread internationally because presumably if you're walking
Speaker 2: around and you have these bed bugs and they're transporting themselves,
Speaker 2: you know, via humans or via public transport, this could
Speaker 2: potentially go on a plane or a boat or any
Speaker 2: other mode of transport.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and you know any global city where there are
Speaker 3: people coming in and out from overseas. Internationally, there are
Speaker 3: bedbugs all over the world, but it's not looking great
Speaker 3: on the containment front. In France, it has to be said.
Speaker 3: Local media in Morocco have reported bed bugs that were
Speaker 3: found on a passenger ship that came in from Marseilles.
Speaker 3: A passenger on board the Eurostar train, a service from
Speaker 3: London to Paris, posted images of what looked like bedbugs
Speaker 3: to social media. Last week. Eurostar said they were doing
Speaker 3: a deep clean on their trains, and the UK actually
Speaker 3: reported a sixty five percent increase in year on year
Speaker 3: bedbugs infestations only in August, so they've got their own outbreak.
Speaker 3: Bedbugs in Australia, I know we're all thinking it. They're
Speaker 3: relatively common, but there hasn't been any news yet on
Speaker 3: a spike. It will definitely be interesting though, to see
Speaker 3: how things play out after everyone you know, goes back
Speaker 3: home from the World carp and Fashion Week. I also
Speaker 3: do want a flag. I think it's important to sort
Speaker 3: of mythbust this idea that bedbugs are a problem for
Speaker 3: dirty people. You could be the cleanest person in the
Speaker 3: world and still get them. And that's what experts are
Speaker 3: telling us. These things really don't care who you are.
Speaker 3: They just want your blood.
Speaker 2: My goodness. What a note to end of Friday podcast
Speaker 2: on and thanks for joining me today. And if you
Speaker 2: learn something from this episode or you're terrified like I am,
Speaker 2: let us know. Next week we're gonna have a bit
Speaker 2: of a different sounding podcast and that is because it
Speaker 2: is the week leading up to the referendum, so we
Speaker 2: are going to dedicate all five days to understanding the
Speaker 2: road to the referendum, how we got here and what
Speaker 2: you need to know.
Speaker 3: And if you are in Sydney and you happen to
Speaker 3: be free on Monday, that's the ninth of October, we're
Speaker 3: actually putting on a little event in Paddington at the
Speaker 3: Imperial Hotel Politics in the Pub. Zara is going to
Speaker 3: be joined by First Nations ABC journalists Carli Williams and
Speaker 3: Isabella Higgins for a free event to answer your questions
Speaker 3: all about the Voice referendum. For more information and to RSVP,
Speaker 3: there is a link in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Have a fabulous weekend,