“Everything is good to take, but to believe that this plan will get us out of the scourge of bed bugs, it is false”. From Marseille, where these pests are particularly present, Katia Yakoubi judges severely the control plan announced by the government in this area. Spokesperson for the Inter collective bed bugs, she was waiting for a “real plan of eradication, of national emergency”.
According to her, the communication work recommended by the plan has already been carried out for a long time in the field. “People are no longer ashamed to talk about it, they have understood that it has nothing to do with hygiene,” she says. We have already done this work of informing the general public with the ARS. Today, the creation of a public service, with a dedicated budget, is lacking. You can’t take things on a case-by-case basis, you need an overall plan. When an apartment is affected, the entire building must be treated. »
“A budget to build”
For Katia Yakoubi, aid to the most precarious is also missing. “There is talk of CAF aid of up to 300 euros for CAF beneficiaries, but the cost of disinfection is between 500 and 1,500 euros, because it often takes three passages to get to s get rid of it. »
The MP for Bouches-du-Rhône (LREM), Cathy-Racon-Bouzon, whose parliamentary report inspired the plan, highlights the future inclusion of bed bugs in the Public Health Code. And this, “among the species of vermin to be prevented and treated”. “This will give police powers to the prefect and the mayor to be able to intervene”, notes Cathy-Racon-Bouzon, even if she admits that we will now have to wait for the next elections to legislate.
As for the question of the absence of an overall budget for the moment allocated to the plan, it dodges. “It is an interministerial plan, there is a budget to be built within the framework of the next finance law, she assures. This plan sets the framework, and it is still the first time that we have taken care of structuring a response to the scourge of bed bugs. »
“Talking about it is already starting the fight”
In Marseille, Jean-Michel Berenger has for several years listened attentively to institutions, as he shares his expertise on bedbugs. “Talking about it is already starting the fight, it’s important at all levels, and it starts with your neighbors, your building manager,” explains the entomologist at the IHU Méditerranée Infection. The quicker we react, the better off we are. »
If the awareness campaigns for the general public, but also for the hotel sector or cinemas, provided for by the plan are found on large billboards, he thus says a big yes. Even if, locally, the ARS has already made its move on the subject, and provides associations with free brochures in all languages. Marseille hospitals are also all equipped with a freezer to treat bedbugs.
“Bedbugs are not inevitable, we can get away with it”
On the question of financial resources, this specialist is perhaps less critical than the Intercollectif. For him, the important thing is above all to tell and teach people how to get rid of it. And to lend the most modest families the necessary equipment, in particular a vaporetto, as the city of Marseilles is starting to do. “Bedbugs are not inevitable, we can get away with it,” recalls Jean-Michel Berenger, for whom the recognition of bedbugs as a public health subject is a real issue: “This means that the ARS will be able to intervene and provide greater resources, this will defuse a lot of things. »
There remains the question of “detecting the centers of dissemination”, these apartments where bedbugs circulate by the thousands. Where it even becomes difficult to hospitalize, because of bedbugs, the tenant, often in psychological suffering. This is the challenge of the necessary mapping and of working with professionals, doctors or social actors, who can take over to identify the situations to be dealt with. So many subjects on which Marseille did not wait for this plan to move forward.