On the tenth day of the garbage collectors’ strike against the pension reform, the accumulation of uncollected trash cans in the streets of Paris is at the heart of a political showdown between the government and the town hall of Paris. While the text passes the crucial stage of the Joint Joint Committee (CMP) on Wednesday March 15, and the CGT strikers voted to continue the movement “at least until March 20”, the two camps send each other the ball on the responsibility to limit its effects.
Seven thousand six hundred tons of waste cluttered the sidewalks of the capital on Wednesday, according to the town hall. And the government, through its spokesperson Olivier Véran, accused socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo of “imposing” on Parisians “the consequences” of her support for the strike movement.
From the start of the review of the reform at the end of January, the former presidential candidate of 2022 had chosen to display the Town Hall as a “solidarity town hall” with the social movement. And on Wednesday afternoon, the Paris Council will be interrupted so that left-wing elected officials can demonstrate, a decision that provoked protests from the right and the center.
“The town hall is not doing much to oppose the strike”, considers the mayor Les Républicains (LR) of the 15th arrondissement Philippe Goujon, for whom Anne Hidalgo “cannot call for solidarity with the demonstrators and complain that Paris has become a city filled with rubbish”.
“Requisition Means”
Asked by the LR mayor of the 7th arrondissement, Rachida Dati, who highlights a “health risk”, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, instructed the Paris police prefect on Tuesday evening to ask the town hall to ” requisition” means to dispose of the refuse. If the town hall “does not follow up on the requisition, the State will take the place” to evacuate the garbage cans, it was added in the entourage of Mr. Darmanin.
Beauvau affirms for his part that the request “was sent this [Wednesday] morning to the town hall”. “We have not received any request for requisition at this stage,” says the entourage of the elected socialist. Above all, the town hall “does not have the power” to requisition the strikers, reaffirms the entourage of Anne Hidalgo, who told Gérald Darmanin “that she did not intend to ask him to do so and advised him to favor dialogue rather than force through”.
In a letter on Tuesday, the police headquarters nevertheless underlines, based – like Ms. Dati – on the general code of local authorities, that “the town hall holds the safety police on the public highway”. It is therefore “within its jurisdiction to request a private company or to requisition the agents”, adds the prefecture, which says it can “in a second step” give notice to the City to do so.
If this procedure “remains unsuccessful, the prefect of police can replace” the town hall, “in the event of an emergency when the observed or foreseeable breach of good order, health and public safety requires it”, adds Prefecture.
“Let the State assume its responsibilities”
“Let the state assume its responsibilities,” said first deputy (PS) Emmanuel Grégoire on Tuesday, according to whom the government “is creating a social crisis and requiring local authorities to request a requisition”. As for the employment of private agents to act “on absolute emergencies”, he acknowledged, it does not constitute “substitute work at all. Never Anne Hidalgo and the elected representatives of this majority would commit to breaking a strike movement, ”he assured.
On Wednesday on BFMTV, the secretary general of the CFDT Laurent Berger challenged Gérald Darmanin:
“How do you requisition people?” Are you going to pick them up one by one? It takes three thousand to collect waste in Paris. »
The town hall also underlines that the outcome of the crisis is played out above all at the door of the three incinerators in the inner suburbs blocked for ten days, and which do not depend on it but on the metropolitan union, Syctom. However, on Tuesday, according to the prefecture, Syctom had not “solicited the assistance of the police to lift these blockages”.
