The emergency due to the aggressiveness of wasps orientalis is not recorded only in Rome, where in recent days an abnormal increase in the presence of these insects has been reported. In the last week also in France there have been some serious episodes of human aggression by this species of wasps. The last one on the evening of Monday 29 August, when a couple in their thirties with their 18-month-old baby was taking a walk in the public park de la Flanerie, in Biache-Saint-Vaast, near Arras (Pas de Calais), on the northern coasts of the country. The father, reports “La voix du Nord”, reported dozens of bites and was transported in serious condition to the hospital in Arras, and then transferred to Lens as his health condition worsened. The mother and son were also hospitalized in Arras, but with more minor injuries. The firefighters who intervened to secure the public garden found the nests of insects, identifying them as wasps orientalis, characterized by a widespread reddish color.
Already on Sunday 21 August in the municipality of Briennon, in the Loire, three cyclists had been attacked by a swarm of wasps. They were on a mountain bike ride in a forest when they were attacked by insects, with an aggression judged by French ethologists to be “unprecedented”. Two of the three unfortunates, aged 51 and 72, reported about fifty punctures each and were transported to the hospital in red code. A surprising attack for the virulence that the Haut-Forez beekeeper Pierrick Marnat, to the local media, justified with the particular drought recorded this year, which makes the wasps more stressed and more aggressive.