Garbage cans are piled up again on Tuesday in a street in Paris. SEBASTIEN SORIANO/Le Figaro
STORY – The mobilization is planned for at least two days, from this Thursday and until the decision of the Constitutional Council on the pension reform.
Will Parisians have to live again with mountains of garbage cans on the sidewalks and pestilential odors under their windows? While they are barely recovering from the first garbage collectors’ strike and the streets are finally cleared of the tons of stored garbage, the situation could deteriorate again. To reiterate its opposition to the pension reform, the CGT is launching a new call for a strike on Thursday with garbage collectors in the capital.
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In a press release sent on Wednesday, the union lists all the agents it believes should join the movement. In addition to the garbage collectors, the ripeurs, the sweepers, he also asks the “sewer workers, workers, drivers, technical assistants, supervisors, sanitation executives…” to ease off. The CGT also wants the staff of the incinerators located around Paris to participate in the paralysis. On the eve of the expected decision of the Constitutional Council on the reform, the organizers of this new protest action want to strike hard.
Everything will depend on the decision of the Constitutional Council
CGT
But the extent of the mobilization remains the great unknown. At the end of March, the CGT suspended the first movement, which started on March 7, due to a decreasing number of strikers over the weeks. Hit in the pocket with lost wages for every day not worked, many of them eventually returned to work. This Thursday morning, with the announced presence of Sophie Binet, the new general secretary of the CGT, a general meeting must be held in front of one of the three incineration centers, in Ivry. A meeting that “should make it possible to measure the extent of the mobilization”, according to Natacha Pommet, the general secretary of the CGT federation of public services. To put pressure on the government, the union hopes that employees of private companies who work in Paris for garbage collection will join public service agents in this new mobilization, the duration of which is, to date, uncertain.
For now, the strike is scheduled for two days, Thursday and Friday. “But we do not know the consequences of this action. Everything will depend on the decision of the Constitutional Council., we say to the CGT. For her part, Natacha Pommet believes that the movement could be long-term. “The dissatisfaction goes beyond the pension reform alone. The effects of inflation are felt on households and wages need to be raised. We are facing a real social anger ”she warns.
For the moment, the Prefecture of police does not react. It is too early, she says, to consider requisitions as she ended up doing during the first movement. After ten days of strike, while the streets of the capital were transformed into landfills, the “PP” had ended up requisitioning 674 agents and 11 companies in management or concessionaires, on March 16th. A decision which had the effect of putting 206 trucks back into service, partially unblocking the sorting centers and collecting some of the 9,300 tonnes of garbage then identified in Paris.
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Around the capital, the three incinerators could be blocked tomorrow, as was the case last month. “Last week there were still some blockages“, we say to Syctom, the joint syndicate owner of these facilities. For the moment, only one site, located in Saint-Ouen, is really targeted by a blockage. But if the paralysis were to increase, Syctom would put in place a plan B to transport the waste further in the Paris region, to other incineration centers. As he had already done during the previous strike.