PARIS (NEWSnet/AP) — France is grappling with a fear of bed bugs as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in just over nine months.

The government has been forced to step in to calm an increasingly anxious nation after the French public began moving into panic mode about a month ago after reports of bedbugs at a Paris movie theater. 

Videos began popping up on social networks, showing little insects on trains and buses. There have been approximately 37 cases in the bus and metro system.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called a meeting of ministers for Friday to tackle the bedbug crisis. The country's transport minister, Clement Beaune, met this week with transportation companies to draw up a plan for monitoring and disinfecting.

More than one household in 10 in France was infested with bed bugs between 2017 and 2022, according to a report by the National Agency for Health and Food Safety.

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