The City of Light is awash in waste. The garbage collectors have indeed engaged in a renewable strike, at the call of the CGT. The latter are thus entering their seventh day of mobilization. As a result, mounds of trash cans have formed in Paris with 5,400 tonnes of uncollected waste this Sunday, according to the town hall.
In its renewable strike notice, the CGT recalls that garbage collectors and drivers can currently claim retirement at 57 without bonus, an age pushed back to 59 in the event of the adoption of the pension reform.
“The vast majority of staff in the cleanliness and water management has a life expectancy of 12 to 17 years less than all employees”, assures the union, also in full negotiation on the index reclassification and the career path of garbage collectors.
Inequality in neighborhoods
City hall officials collect waste in half of the Parisian arrondissements (2nd, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 17th and 20th arrondissements), while the other half is managed by private service providers. . Hence unequal situations between the different districts.
“We prioritize interventions on safety (clearing food markets, removal of garbage bags on the ground) and the safety of pedestrian paths”, further specifies this Sunday Colombe Roussel, assistant to the Paris City Hall in charge of cleanliness.
She adds that “the last accessible site of Syctom (the metropolitan household waste agency, editor’s note) for emptying skips is partially closed today. Incinerators and garages are still blocked”.
Point #strike #retirements
The collection is very disrupted today in all the boroughs @Paris. The last accessible SYCTOM site for emptying skips is partially closed today. Incinerators and garages still blocked pic.twitter.com/FJn5xkGSbh— Colombe Brossel (@cbrossel) March 12, 2023
Indeed, the three incineration plants at the gates of the capital, those of Ivry-sur-Seine, Issy-les-Moulineaux and Saint-Ouen, are stopped. Syctom has indicated that it diverts the dumpsters to around fifteen other processing or storage sites and that it has not, at this stage, required the intervention of the police to put an end to the blocking of its centers.
Uncertainty about the end of the movement
In the streets, passers-by interviewed by AFP on Sunday often say they “understand the movement”. Garbage collectors “are the first victims of this reform” because “often they started working young” and “do a more difficult job than other people who are in offices”, comments Christophe Mouterde, an 18-year-old student.
“It’s terrible, there are rats and mice,” notes Romain Gaia, a 36-year-old pastry chef who, like other traders in the 2nd arrondissement, has stored trash cans that accumulate on more than one square near a square. one meter high. But working longer for the garbage collectors, “it’s delusional, they are absolutely right to make a social movement”, believes the pastry chef.
On Twitter, users are less lenient vis-à-vis the situation.
Asked Friday by “Les Echos”, the Paris City Hall does not risk a prognosis on the end of the movement. The “movement will continue as long as the pension reform is not abandoned,” said Régis Vieceli, CGT general secretary of the waste and sanitation sector for the city of Paris, on the set of BFMTV.