The Parisian strikers will let a few garbage trucks pass through the incinerators. A decision taken to limit the risk of epidemics.
By VP with AFP
© MAGALI COHEN / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
Published on
Un first step? The strikers of the three waste incineration sites produced by Paris have set up “filtering dams” to let garbage collection trucks pass, a union delegate told Agence France-Presse on Saturday, confirming information from Release,on the thirteenth day of the strike against the pension reform.
At a general meeting on Friday, the strikers “continued the action until Tuesday inclusive, with filtering of trucks” in Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine) on Saturday and Sunday, then in Saint-Ouen (Seine- Saint-Denis) Monday and Tuesday, said Fatiha Lahrech, CGT union representative at the Issy-les-Moulineaux site.
Letting trucks pass is a “security decision to limit the risk of epidemics”, she explained. By mid-morning Saturday, only three passed.
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10,000 tonnes of waste in Paris
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. According to the CGT, 95% of the employees of the Ivry treatment site and all the drivers of the two garages are on strike. On Friday, the Paris City Hall estimated that 10,000 tonnes of uncollected waste were present on the Parisian sidewalks.
After the refusal of the mayor PS Anne Hidalgo, support of the social movement, to request the requisition from the prefect of police, the latter signed this requisition of agents on Thursday to evacuate the garbage.
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Requisitioned companies
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, then affirmed that this requisition was working, but that, on the ground, the situation remained confused. The capital has a special collection system: city hall officials collect waste in half of the arrondissements, while the other half is served by private service providers.
Late in the evening on Friday, the Derichebourg company announced in a press release “to have been requisitioned” by the police headquarters “in order to contribute to a minimum garbage collection service”. The prefecture confirmed this information on Saturday morning, stating that “five dump truck garages had resumed activity” and that “two treatment concession companies as well as several agents (had) been required since Friday”.
Mobilized, the garbage collectors of the town hall refuse with this reform the postponement of their retirement from 57 to 59 years. “We have twelve years less life expectancy for garbage collectors and seven years less for sewer workers,” said Fréderic Aubisse, 54-year-old sewer worker, on Friday.
