
“They won’t last a single day,” Ouchen said. He suggested politicians go on a “discovery day” to learn first-hand what it takes to keep the city clean. … We are unfortunately among the invisible people,” said Jamel Ouchen, who sweeps streets in a chic Paris neighborhood. “What makes France turn are the invisible jobs. Sanitation workers say two more years is too long for the essential but neglected services they render to all. 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.

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. READ MORE: France braces for major transportation woes amid continued pension strikes We’re completely aware.”īut, 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.” “There are bins everywhere, stuff all over.

“It makes me sick,” said Gursel Durnaz, who has been on a picket line for nine days. Turkay nevertheless sympathized with striking workers and accepted her discomfort as being “for a good cause.”Įven the strikers themselves, who include garbage collectors, street cleaners and underground sewer workers, are concerned about what Paris is becoming in their absence. She added that it was “upsetting to be honest” because on “beautiful streets … you see all the rubbish and everything. “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. Other French cities are also having garbage problems, but the mess in Paris, the showcase of France, has quickly become emblematic of strikers’ discontent. READ MORE: Unions vow to shut down France’s economy amid pension battle
#Invisible braces tv
Some piles disappeared early Tuesday with help from a private company, the TV station BFMTV reported. More than 5,600 tons of garbage had piled up by Monday, drawing complaints from some district mayors.

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. The malodorous perfume of rotting food has begun escaping from some rubbish bags and overflowing bins. The creeping squalor is the most visible sign of widespread anger over a bill to raise the French retirement age by two years. 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.
