A big movie buff, Yannis, 33, went to the cinema two to three times a week. But that was before. Before the presence of bedbugs in dark rooms has intensified since the start of the school year. A phenomenon which quickly took on the appearance of collective psychosis, with bedbugs being spotted there in a TGV, here in the metro, there again in classrooms. As for the cinemas, as soon as the first cases appeared, we rushed to try to put out the fire. But since then, they have been reluctant to speak out on the subject. These little creatures, no bigger than an apple seed, could yet have a greater economic impact than their small size would suggest. You just have to listen to the number of people who now say they are hesitant to come and sit on the red padded armchairs in dark rooms.
“Since the media coverage of bedbugs, it has slowed me down and I have not returned to the cinema for a little over a month,” says Yannis. Amélie, 25, who enjoyed going to the cinema weekly, also says she no longer goes for fear of “infesting (her) new apartment”. Same explanation for Laetitia, 28, who has “never seen bedbugs”. “But the fear of bringing it home deters me,” explains the young woman. “It’s really complicated for me to restrict myself but, at the same time, knowing that we can sit in infected chairs clearly spoils the pleasure of seeing a film,” laments Sarah, a regular at the capital’s independent cinemas since several years.
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However, among professionals, we swear that the impact on attendance is minimal. “There is no significant impact on attendance,” the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC) simply says. MK2 cinemas, some of which have been publicly cited by spectators as being contaminated by bedbugs, also claim that there is “no drop in attendance, no drop in the number of subscriptions, no impact” . At Pathé-Gaumont, we refer to the National Federation of French Cinema (FNCF), the organization representing cinema operators in France, which did not respond to our requests. Another union in the sector recounts its latest exchanges with the FNCF, during which the federation assured it “that cases of bedbugs in cinemas were marginal and that it remained vigilant on the subject”.
External observers from the cinema sector make the same observation. A close follower of global box offices, the Comscore institute has not seen a “bedbug effect” on French entries. “There may have been impacts locally following certain subjects in the press/radio/TV, but no general “psychosis” which would have a notable effect on the market,” indicates Éric Marti, general delegate of Comscore France. No one therefore blames the poor attendance at French cinemas in September on bedbugs. According to CNC estimates, certainly the number of spectators is up 16.1% compared to September 2022 – which was the worst September since 1980, after 2020. But above all it was down 21.1% compared to the average for pre-Covid years 2017-2019. A drop “linked to the Indian summer” and the exceptional weather for the month of September, try to justify the MK2 cinemas.
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However, bedbugs are “a new blow for these establishments which are already suffering from the disenchantment of the population since Covid-19”, noted Cécile Eynard, consultant in digital communication strategy, last month in our columns . The testimonies collected by Le Figaro demonstrate customers’ need for reassurance. Yannis, for example, says he is ready to return to seeing films in theaters, provided that cinema groups “do studies or communications to resolve this problem and that they stop denying this reality that they are trying to erase with tweets.
Martine*, 67, also expects “more communication to reassure people and warn them that disinfections have been carried out”. If this UGC subscriber goes to the cinema less at the moment, she has still found a solution to risk going there from time to time. “I put a sarong on my chair, which I soak in insecticide,” explains the sixty-year-old. As for Nicole, she only goes to “cinemas where the seats are leather”. Another cinema fan says she has “a surgeon friend who puts hospital mattress pads on the cinema seats”. Others are abandoning large networks, like Annabel, 33, preferring independent cinemas, “smaller, with less traffic”. But most are unanimous. They will return to the cinema once all this psychosis has calmed down.
*First names have been changed
