On the twelfth day of the garbage collectors’ strike, the bar of 10,000 tonnes of uncollected waste was officially crossed at midday, Friday, March 17.
The situation was confused, the day after the government resorted to 49.3 to pass the pension reform. While the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, affirms that the requisition of agents “works and makes it possible to collect these trash cans”, the Paris City Hall assures that “no dumpster has come out” in the arrondissements where collection is provided by municipal officials.
After the refusal on Wednesday of PS mayor Anne Hidalgo, who supports the social movement, to request the requisition of agents from the prefect of police, the latter “on Thursday evening requested the city’s cleanliness service” to evacuate the garbage, assured Gérald Darmanin Friday morning. “As of today, this morning, this requisition works and makes it possible to pick up these trash cans,” he assured RTL.
A heterogeneous situation depending on the boroughs
But the borough mayors interviewed had little certainty on Friday about the effects of this decision. Their situation already differs, since the start of the strike, depending on whether the collection is carried out by city officials, for half of the boroughs, or by a private service provider, for the other half.
For Delphine Bürkli, mayor Horizons of the 9th arrondissement, managed by the public and therefore very affected by the absence of collection, if “requisitions of garages [de garbage trucks] for private service providers” took place, “the authorities are not not yet affected”. For the LR mayor of the 15th arrondissement, Philippe Goujon, whose private service provider saw, after a legal action, his garage unlocked by the police, the requisition of city staff “effectively begins”. “Crews have come out,” he says. Mr. Goujon calls for the unblocking of the incinerators of the metropolitan union (Syctom), chaired by the socialist Corentin Duprey and who does not want at this stage to request the intervention of the police.
In Ivry-sur-Seine, the largest of Syctom’s three incineration sites, the police came on Friday to dislodge the strikers from one of the two adjoining garages, before withdrawing. Access to the factory as to the two garbage truck garages is therefore still blocked, noted Agence France-Presse on the spot.
According to the CGT, 95% of the employees of the Ivry treatment site and all the drivers of the two garages are on strike this Friday. Regarding the garbage collectors on strike, no figures have been communicated by the unions.
