Paris Olympics poised to take the gold medal in virtue signaling

Paris Olympics poised to take the gold medal in virtue signaling

By: Rachel Marsden

PARIS — “So, just how bad are the bed bugs?” That’s the question most often asked on my recent trip to North America upon learning that I’m based in Paris, where the Summer Olympic Games are slated for two weeks in July and August. Bedbugs are now just about the least of mounting concerns subjected to blame-shifting and grandstanding by officials.

First, let’s talk about those bedbugs. Earlier this year, France’s Europe Minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, blamed Russia for bedbug “disinformation,” even though the government’s own state media announced a “battle plan” against them last September, targeting infestations in “public transport, cinemas, and hospitals.”

Last year, much ado was made of two fake online articles, made to look real, and attributed to “Russian trolls,” that claimed bedbugs in France flourished because of a sanctions ban on anti-bedbug pesticides made in Russia. Agence France Presse, which analyzed the articles and spoke with experts, uncovered the truth: France had bedbugs way before the Olympic Games came along, so take THAT Russia!

French left-wing member of parliament, Mathilde Panot, said that she told authorities way back in 2017 that there were 200,000 infested locations and 1.2 million by 2022. Bedbugs are even on the rise in neighboring Britain, with a whopping 65 percent increase in infestations from 2022 alone, the pest control company Rentokil explained to Reuters last year.

The Brits were worried about some of the pests hopping on the Eurostar and heading their way. So was Algeria, which adopted a health vigilance system against bedbugs infiltration of aircraft, ships, and land transportation. That’s a lot of work for a problem downplayed and conveniently exploited as Russian fake news.

Then there’s the fact that the athletes’ rooms won’t have air conditioning — a daunting proposition given the record-setting summer heat waves of recent years. Instead, Paris is set to deploy a geothermal cooling system that’s supposed to transfer the heat back from the athletes’ village to the Earth. But only down to as low as 23C to 26C (73.4F to 78.8F) if a heatwave hits, as Euronews reported earlier this year.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, better known to Parisians for waging an ecological war of attrition on cars in the city, has said that she wants the games to be “exemplary from an environmental point of view.” And the athletic performances? Well, that’s not her problem.

Some delegations say that they’re planning to organize their own air conditioning, with one national rep pointing out that it’s the Olympics, not a picnic. Tell that to Hidalgo. “What matters to me is that these buildings, these flats will become a neighborhood where people from L’Ile-Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen and Saint-Denis (in the Paris suburbs) will live,” she said in response to the complaints.

Welcome to France, where blasting the heat full-force during mild winters is morally acceptable, but if your neighbors spot an air conditioner in your apartment window, they’ll call you a planet-killer. But if you’re Hidalgo, you can apparently nonetheless hop on a private Falcon jet to go see one of the stages of the Tour de France without choking on your own hypocrisy.

The Games’ opening ceremonies are set to be held in an open- air format along the Seine, which runs through the city. Officials birthed that brain-dropping while sucking on their own fumes from behind a mask during the Covid lockdowns when the French were stuck inside their homes for 23 hours a day under penalty of fines and prison. Fast- forward four years, and the government’s Covid obsession has been upstaged by the return of its security and terrorism obsession. Whoops. Who couldn’t have predicted that? Not the clowns in charge, apparently. So what do they do to fix their errors? Double down on authoritarianism by introducing lockdown-style QR codes and a bureaucratic online registration process for those in Paris who want to actually move around town during the Games.

French officials have also been adamant about holding open water and triathlon swimming events in the historically polluted Seine river. They’ve already started moving the homeless and migrants who usually camp out along its banks, with the Associated Press reporting mass police evictions last month.

Guess those folks won’t be around to cheer on the athletes competing in their toilet. All this in an attempt to prove that Paris can be homeless-free and the Seine drinkable for a few days, before returning to regularly scheduled programming.

Hidalgo and French President Emmanuel Macron have promised to take a dip in the Seine themselves to prove that it’s swimmable. Sounds like there’s some wriggle room in this test of accountability since they could just decide to keep their mouths shut — for once — during their dip. How about instead they stay on dry land and each publicly guzzle a gallon of water from the Seine? They’d still have a bit more time to find yet another convenient scapegoat for any adverse effects from their posturing.