Tue, 14 March 2023
Portuguese tourist Fabio Figueirado wanted to admire beautiful buildings on a romantic getaway in Paris, but instead he and his girlfriend have found themselves navigating pavements piled high with garbage.
"I've never seen a city with so much trash on the street," said the 25-year-old, near a mound of bulging bin bags across the road from the city's main opera house.
"They must collect it once a week or something, it's not very nice at all."
Tourists flock to Paris for fairy-tale walks and iconic monuments, but piles of uncollected trash because of strikes against a pension reform are spoiling the experience for many foreign visitors.
The French capital's municipal garbage collectors have been on strike since last week as part of nationwide action against the deeply unpopular bill to hike the retirement age and increase contributions for a full pension.
The walkout has left 6,600 tonnes of rubbish piled up on sidewalks in around half of the capital, according to city authorities.
Sitting near the Notre-Dame cathedral, Martha Velasquez, 52, was tucking into an ice-cream with her family not far from another stream of black bags.
"I think it's really sad to see so much trash here in this beautiful city," said the visitor from Colombia.
"It's been several streets that we see piles of trash."
- 'I'll be poor' -
The capital's municipal garbage collectors and cleaners on Tuesday voted to extend their walkout until at least next Monday, a union representative told AFP.
Garbage collectors and truck drivers are opposed to their retirement age being pushed back from 57 to 59 if the new law is passed, the CGT union says.
They also want a wage increase so that they receive a slightly higher pension.
Murielle Gaeremynck, 56, is among those striking.
She said she had been working for more than two decades as a city garbage worker.
But when I retire, "I know I'll be poor," she said, explaining her pension would be less than 1,200 euros (around $1,200) a month.
Nabil Latreche, 44, said he and other municipal collectors had a gruelling job and deserved a decent retirement.
"We work whether there's rain, snow or wind," he said.
"When we're riding behind the truck, we breathe in all sorts of fumes. We often get sick from work."
- Sign of a 'free country' -
In parts of Paris where pickups have been interrupted, some tourists in recent days have complained of the smell.
But others have been much more understanding.
In a narrow back alley of restaurants near the River Seine, Andrey Naradzetski, 21, posed for a picture in front of a giant heap of rubbish.
But he saw the detritus as a healthy sign of democracy.
"It feels like it's a really liberated, free country because here there are strikes," said the young Belarusian who lives in Poland.
I don't "believe the same situation can happen in my home country."
Not far off, near more overflowing dustbins, US tourist Daniel Gore, 53, said he too respected those striking.
"Paris is usually amazingly clean," he said, on his 13th visit to the city with his wife and daughter.
"This time we obviously noticed a difference -- that there's trash piled up -- but we also know why and we understand."
Jean-François Rial, president of the Paris tourism office, admitted all the rubbish was "not optimal for foreign visitors".
But the ongoing strikes will have "no impact" on tourism numbers in Paris, he told AFP.
burs-ah-jf/adp/rox
Garbage piles up on Paris sidewalks as pension strike continues
By — Elaine Ganley, Associated Press
Mar 14, 2023
PARIS (AP) — The City of Light is losing its luster with tons of garbage piling up on Paris sidewalks as sanitation workers strike for a ninth day Tuesday. The creeping squalor is the most visible sign of widespread anger over a bill to raise the French retirement age by two years.
The malodorous perfume of rotting food has begun escaping from some rubbish bags and overflowing bins. Neither the Left Bank palace housing the Senate nor, across town, a street steps from the Elysee Palace, where waste from the presidential residence is apparently being stocked, was spared by the strike.
More than 5,600 tons of garbage had piled up by Monday, drawing complaints from some district mayors. Some piles disappeared early Tuesday with help from a private company, the TV station BFMTV reported.
READ MORE: Unions vow to shut down France’s economy amid pension battle
Other French cities are also having garbage problems, but the mess in Paris, the showcase of France, has quickly become emblematic of strikers’ discontent.
“It’s a bit too much because it was even hard to navigate” some streets, said 24-year-old British visitor Nadiia Turkay after touring the French capital. She added that it was “upsetting to be honest” because on “beautiful streets … you see all the rubbish and everything. The smell.”
Turkay nevertheless sympathized with striking workers and accepted her discomfort as being “for a good cause.”
Even the strikers themselves, who include garbage collectors, street cleaners and underground sewer workers, are concerned about what Paris is becoming in their absence.
“It makes me sick,” said Gursel Durnaz, who has been on a picket line for nine days. “There are bins everywhere, stuff all over. People can’t get past. We’re completely aware.”
But, he added, President Emmanuel Macron has only to withdraw his plan to increase the French retirement age “and Paris will be clean in three days.”
READ MORE: France braces for major transportation woes amid continued pension strikes
Strikes have intermittently hobbled other sectors including transport, energy and ports, but Macron remains undaunted as his government presses ahead with trying to get the unpopular pension reform bill passed in parliament. The bill would raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 for most people anf from 57 to 59 for most people in the sanitation sector.
Sanitation workers say two more years is too long for the essential but neglected services they render to all.
“What makes France turn are the invisible jobs. … We are unfortunately among the invisible people,” said Jamel Ouchen, who sweeps streets in a chic Paris neighborhood. He suggested politicians go on a “discovery day” to learn first-hand what it takes to keep the city clean.
“They won’t last a single day,” Ouchen said.
Health is a prime concern within the sanitation sector, officially acknowledged with the current early retirement at 57, though many people work longer to increase their pensions. With the exception of sewage workers, there appear to be no long-term studies to confirm widespread claims of shortened life expectancy among sanitation workers.
Still, health reasons were behind Ali Chaligui’s decision to switch out of his job as a garbage collector for an office position in logistics. Chaligui, 41, says he still suffers after-effects 10 years later, like tendonitis, shoulder and ankle problems.
“Monsieur Macron wants us to die on the job,” said Frederic Aubisse, a sewer worker and member of the executive committee of the sanitation section of the leftist CGT union, at the forefront of the mobilization against the pension plan.
The stakes will be high on Wednesday for both the government and striking workers. Unions are organizing their eighth nationwide protest marches since January, and the third in nine days; the action is timed to coincide with a closed-door meeting of seven senators and seven lower-house lawmakers who will try to reach a consensus on the text of the bill. Success would send the legislation back to both houses for voting on Thursday.
But nothing is certain, and the ticking clock appears to have fed the determination of strikers manning picket lines.
Durnaz, 55, is among those on the picket line at an incineration plant south of Paris, one of three serving the capital — all blocked since March 6. He has only been home twice to see his wife and three children. “It’s cold, it rains, there’s wind,” he said.
Even if the bill becomes law, “we have other options,” said Durnaz. “It’s not over.”
“Nothing is written in stone,” Aubisse, the union official, added. He cited an unpopular 2006 law to promote youth employment that was pushed through by then-Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin despite massive student protests that triggered a political crisis. Months later, it was abandoned in a parliamentary vote.
If the pension reform is voted through, “Things will happen,” Aubisse said. “That’s sure and certain.”
Alex Turnbull in Paris contributed.
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