Paris, the city of romance, is turning into a garbage dump as tonnes of stinking garbage continue to pile up on the city’s sidewalks as sanitation workers continue their strike for the ninth day on Tuesday.
The increasing amount of garbage has become a clear sign of the widespread anger among workers over a bill to increase the French retirement age by two years.
The bins are overflowing and the food rotting in some of the rubbish bags is making the city stink. Till Tuesday, more than 7,000 tonnes of garbage was piling up on the roads of the city.
“It’s dirty, it attracts rats and cockroaches,” complained one Parisian on French radio. The workers have been on a strike over the proposal of the Emmanuel Macron government to increase the pension age from 62 to 64.
Apart from Paris, cities like Rennes, Le Havre and Nantes, Rennes have also been affected by the strike. The pension strikes were joined by the refuse collectors a week ago and the authorities of Paris said that half of the districts of the city, which fall under the council workers, have been badly hit by the action.
The strikers have blocked three waste treatment sites and a fourth remains partially closed. Paris council stated that in the 10 districts, which fall under private companies, the services have been running normally.
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However, according to a few reports, the activists have been trying to prevent garbage collection in those areas. “It’s a bit too much because it was even hard to navigate” some streets, said Nadiia Turkay, a 24-year-old British visitor.
She further stated that it was “upsetting, to be honest,” because on “beautiful streets … you see all the rubbish and everything. The smell.”
(With inputs from agencies)
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