Do you remember the bedbug plague in Paris? Guess who is behind it: the German trade union also calls for warning strikes at airports on Friday

The French government could prove that the bedbug story was a deliberate campaign that was “part of Moscow’s hybrid warfare,” as the FAZ writes.

This was said by French European Minister Jean-Noël Barrot to the largest French TV channel TF1. Barrot further explained:

The Russians’ motives? They wanted to harm France by damaging the reputation of the city of love before next summer’s Olympic Games in Paris. Potential foreign visitors are made to believe that if they attend the games, they are at risk of becoming infected with the bugs.

The strategy worked – at least temporarily. The alleged plague and associated videos went viral on social media, with media outlets around the world (including us) reporting on the supposedly disastrous conditions in the French capital.

Our author’s alarm bells immediately rang louder than “Emmanuel”, the largest bell of Notre-Dame, ever could:

But the Russian online trolls went even further, as Europe Minister Barrot further explained: “A link was even wrongly made between the admission of Ukrainian refugees and the spread of bedbugs,” the 40-year-old minister said. “This was also spread by accounts linked to the Kremlin.”

In response to the negative hype, Parisian hotels, cinemas and public transport companies also panicked. As a precaution, exterminators were hired to put an end to the crawling creatures – the insect hunters were fully booked and could barely save themselves from orders.

And the issue was immediately discussed in Paris City Hall. There was a fear, as the Russians probably intended, that their image would suffer lasting damage. Emmanuel Macron’s government also intervened and convened an emergency meeting.

More than 24 hours later, Transport Minister Clément Beaune faced the media and firmly dismissed the bug rumors. Nearly fifty reports relating to public transport were investigated. The parasites could not be detected in a single case. And no increased occurrence was found in hotels or other establishments. Nevertheless, authorities relied on prevention and disinfected entire schools or cinemas as a precaution.

Although according to authorities, the number of cases of bedbug infestations in France has even increased slightly between 2017 and 2022, as ARD writes, the turnaround in October turned out to be a storm in a teacup.

It has long been known that Russia is trying to cause destabilization in European countries or the US with targeted online disruptive actions. In 2016, Russian trolls pushed the election of Donald Trump in the US, and since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, fake news offensives against the West have increased.

France in particular, which supported Ukraine during the war – at least rhetorically – has been repeatedly targeted in such campaigns. Recently, crowds of Stars of David were painted on the facades of houses in Paris to divide the population in view of the war in the Middle East. The perpetrators were arrested and admitted to having been paid by Russian customers.

Or in mid-February, a deepfake video of Russian origin about Emmanuel Macron circulated online, suggesting that the French president had skipped a visit to Kiev because an assassination attempt on him was planned there.