Sex experts have thrown their weight behind a Dutch campaign to warn tourists about a growing epidemic of sexually transmitted infections in France.
The campaign says that Dutch holidaymakers travelling to France should remember to pack their own condoms in their luggage before they set off.
According to the sex experts, instances of STIs have tripled in the last four years. People between the ages of 15 and 24 are the most likely to contract an STI. The most common infections that people are picking up in France are gonorrhoea and chlamydia.
The numbers are pretty staggering. In 2016 - which is the last year that the French health authorities have statistics available for - 267,097 people were infected with chlamydia.
Back in 2012, only 76,918 people caught the infection.
Public Health France have said that the numbers could actually be an awful lot higher than that, too. That is down to the fact that a lot of people simply don't get checked out for sexually transmitted infections and don't get physical symptoms.
Chlamydia can remain relatively symptomless for a very long time within the human body but can also be massively dangerous if left untreated. It is possible that some people can be infected with it for years without realising.
In response to this, Public Health France have started a new campaign to get French people to wear condoms when they have sex. It's called 'A Condom Could Save Your Life' and is aimed at encouraging young French people to practise safe sex.
Recent statistics show that 48 percent of young French people don't bother using a condom when they have sex.
Florence Lot, a Public Health France spokesperson, said that young people in France 'have multiple changing sexual partners and do not always use a condom'.
She continued: "This is why there are so many infections with youngsters under the age of 25."
The hotspots for this STI epidemic are the capital, Paris, and the Provence region in the south. Both of these areas are full of tourists in summer, which has led to calls from several countries for their travelling citizens to be careful when having sex.
The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Netherland's public health service GGD even warns tourists not to trust French condoms. They said that people should pack their own condoms before travelling to be sure.
A GGD spokesperson said: "In lots of countries condoms are difficult to obtain and not always reliable.
"Therefore, preferably take them from home. Do not keep them in sunlight.
"Holiday romances might seem romantic but are not without danger.
"The circumstances are different, but the risks remain the same."
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