Bed bugs hamper French services

Bed bugs hamper French rail services

FRANCE'S national rail company has launched war against bed bugs following complaints by passengers, disrupting services.

The company yesterday said it had taken several sleeper carriages out of service to deal with an infestation of bed bugs.

An SNCF official said: "Some passengers told us they were bitten," and that the parasites had been found on a night train going from the Mediterranean city of Nice to eastern Metz last week. "We took the affected carriages out to treat them.," the official said.

To prevent capacity problems, SNCF was not taking any new reservations for night trains from Nice to Paris this week. The affected carriages had already been disinfected and services would be back to normal next week, the official said.

Bed bugs were a rare occurrence, she added.

"It's the kind of little animal that unfortunately you'll only notice when they bite. There's no other way to detect them. They are so small," the official said.