As of Tuesday (15 March), 7,000 tonnes of garbage were awaiting pick up from the pavements in Paris. AP File Photo
France’s capital, Paris, is stinking. As sanitation workers continue to strike in the City of Lights, tonnes of rubbish have clogged the streets.
This comes as municipal garbage collectors joined the industrial action a week ago against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform bill.
As per BBC, half of the districts in Paris, Nantes, Rennes and Le Havre have been affected by the workers’ action.
How has the walkout affected Paris and why is there opposition to France’s pension plan? Let’s take a look.
Paris’ rubbish problem
The strikes have hit trash pickup services in Paris, leaving garbage overflowing in its streets.
As of Tuesday (15 March), 7,000 tonnes of garbage were awaiting pick up from the pavements.
The stench of decaying food from garbage bags and bins has started filling the streets, reported Associated Press (AP).
BBC reported that three waste treatment sites have been shut off and another partially closed.
As per the Paris council, the situation was almost normal in 10 districts where trash is collected by private companies.
Tourists who flocked to Paris for a getaway have been encountering piled-up trash on the streets.
The stench of decaying food has started filling the streets of Paris. Reuters File Photo
“It’s a bit too much because it was even hard to navigate” some streets, 24-year-old British visitor Nadiia Turkay told AP after touring Paris. She further stated that it was “upsetting, to be honest,” because on “beautiful streets … you see all the rubbish and everything. The smell.”
Some visitors have been understanding of the strikes, with one calling the waste a “healthy sign of democracy”.
“It feels like it’s a really liberated, free country because here there are strikes,” a young Belarusian who lives in Poland told AFP.
I don’t “believe the same situation can happen in my home country,” he added.
Jean-Fran?ois Rial, president of the Paris tourism office, said that heaping garbage was “not optimal for foreign visitors”. But, he stated that the current strikes will have “no impact” on tourism figures in the city, reported AFP.
Fear of rat invasion
The accumulated garbage bags have raised health concerns.
A commentator on Europe1 radio called the situation an “all-you-can-eat buffet” for the rats in Paris, reported BBC.
For every person in Paris, there are 1.5 to 1.75 rats, making France’s capital of the most infested cities in the world, as per a Politico report.
“The strike triggers a change in rat behaviour,” specialist Romain Lasseur told Le Parisien newspaper, as per BBC.
“They’ll rummage around in bins, reproduce there, and leave their urine and droppings. We have a worrying health risk for refuse collectors and the general population.”
Geoffroy Boulard, the mayor of the 17th arrondissement, said in an interview with CNN affiliate BFMTV that he has urged Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo to hire a private service provider to tackle the issue.
“We can’t wait,” he said adding, “this is a matter of public health”.
The strike of the sanitation workers has left Parisians divided.
The garbage “is not a particularly enjoyable sight, but that’s also the goal of the strike,” Guillaume Meigniez, a resident of northern Paris, told Politico.
Meigniez said he was not quite worried about rats as they are already “quite numerous” in normal times and “they’re not going to start ganging up and attacking people.”
The accumulated garbage on Paris streets has raised health concerns. Reuters File Photo
Frederic Prudhomme, the owner of Paris 16 restaurant, spoke against the strikes. When asked if he knows why workers are holding protests, he told Reuters: “Yes, but it’s their problem in a way. We all have problems. I have staffing problems, I always have problems, we all have problems. They need to grow up.”
Speaking to AP, Gursel Durnaz, who has been on a picket line for nine days, said: “There are bins everywhere, stuff all over. People can’t get past. We’re completely aware.”
However, he added, that the president has only to withdraw his plan to increase the retirement age “and Paris will be clean in three days.”
ALSO READ: The TikTok protests: Why children are rioting in schools across the UK?
France’s pension reform
Macron has proposed raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, prompting protests across the country.
For most workers in the sanitation sector, the retirement age will increase from 57 to 59. If the plan is enforced, the bin workers who face difficult working conditions will have to work for two more years.
Nabil Latreche, a municipal collector, told AFP that they have a taxing 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.”
The reforms have also led to discontentment among major sectors in France, including transport, energy and ports.
Despite the backlash, Macron’s government has refused to budge, arguing that the reform is required to make the system financially stable.
As the opponents of the plan carry out an eighth round of strikes and protests on Wednesday (15 March), a joint committee of senators and lower-house or National Assembly lawmakers in France will decide on the final text of the reform.
Final voting could take place in both houses on Thursday.
Macron’s party does not hold a majority in the National Assembly, and thus getting the bill passed in the lower house would not be a piece of cake.
With inputs from agencies
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.