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