“They are no longer piles of garbage, but walls.” This is how a resident of the 8th district of Paris expressed himself this Friday in “Le Figaro” in front of rancid and smelly bags. The Paris City Council confirmed that at noon the symbolic threshold of the 10,000 tons of uncollected waste. The neighbors begin to worry about the risks of unsanitary and insecurity that the piles of bags with rotten food can bring to the health of Parisians. “The concentration of garbage, especially food, endangers the population, poses a public hygiene problem and favors the proliferation of rats, vectors of diseases“, declared the Paris Police Prefecture, this Friday, adding that “this accumulation of garbage favors the risk of fire.” France is going through some particularly hot days due to the protests against the decree of the Government of Emmanuel Macron to approve the reform of pensions without the vote of the National Assembly. The streets of Paris turned into a pitched battle on Thursday. During the spontaneous demonstrations against the pension reform some activists they set fire to the piles of rubbish that were in their path.
This garbage crisis is caused by a minority group that remains very active. The unions have not given a figure, but the mayors of the 9th and 5th arrondissements of Paris, Delphine Bürkli and Florence Berthout, estimate that only there are 5% of the officials on strike. “That 5% has the power to block the entire collection process, or almost, through two types of actions: blocking municipal garages and incineration centers,” explains Florence Berthout. The three centers where Parisians’ waste is incinerated are closed: two due to the strike and one due to works. The Police tried this Friday to lift the blockade at the Ivry-sur-Seine incineration center, but had to back down due to strong opposition from the strikers.
forced mobilization
Given the magnitude of the situation, the first forced mobilizations of personnel they took place on Friday, at the end of a multi-day tug-of-war between the French government and the mayor of Paris. Anne Hidalgo who has sided with the strikers. “The situation that you mention is entirely attributable to the will of the government to legislate to raise the legal retirement age,” he declared in a letter to the Paris police prefect in which he contested his request. Laurent Nuñez decided to issue a decree himself to requisition the municipal cleaners of Paris under the General Code of Local Corporations. The prefect drew up an order specifying the identity of the seized employees. The list of the 4,000 municipal workers to mobilize was previously transmitted by the Paris City Council, which was obliged to do so in its capacity as employer.
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