The Cinémathèque Française, home to one of France's biggest film archives, has halted screenings for a month after cinemagoers reported being bitten by bedbugs.
The Cinémathèque, housed in a Frank Gehry-designed building in south-east Paris, announced on Friday that its four screens would remain dark until 2 January while the venue undergoes deep cleaning.
"All the seats will be dismantled and then individually treated with dry steam at 180C several times, before being systematically checked by dogs," the cinema said, adding that carpets would also be treated.
The measures follow reports earlier this month of audience members spotting bedbugs, including during a masterclass with Hollywood star Sigourney Weaver.
One man who attended the 7 November event told Le Parisien newspaper that a friend crushed several of the insects on his jeans, while several spectators complained of pain and itching.
The Cinémathèque has carried out regular steam cleaning and sniffer dog checks for bedbugs since 2021, but said that the latest reports had prompted extra precautions in order to guarantee viewers "a perfectly safe and comfortable environment".
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Bedbug hysteria
The rest of the Cinémathèque Française will remain open to the public, including its current exhibition about actor and filmmaker Orson Welles.
Reports of bedbugs abounded as France prepared to host the 2024 Paris Olympics, pushing the government to announce emergency efforts to tackle the insects.
Some schools and classes were temporarily closed and a deep inspection of metros and trains was carried out, though authorities found no trace of any unusual outbreak.
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Paris later said that disinformation spread by Russia-linked social media accounts had amplified the public's panic.
"The bed bug polemic was in a very large part amplified by accounts linked to the Kremlin, and they even created a false link between the arrival of Ukrainian refuges and the spread of bedbugs," Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told French television at the time.
(with AFP)
