Garbage tarnishes Paris luster as pension strike continues

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. The creeping squalor is the most visible sign of widespread anger over a bill to raise the French retirement age by two years.

The malodorous perfume of rotting food has begun escaping from some rubbish bags and overflowing bins. 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. More than 5,600 tons of garbage had piled up by Monday, drawing complaints from some district mayors. Some piles disappeared early Tuesday with help from a private company, the TV station BFMTV reported. Other French cities are also having garbage problems, but the mess in Paris, the showcase of France, has quickly become emblematic of strikers’ discontent. 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. 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.

Sanitation workers say two more years is too long for the essential but neglected services they render to all. Health is a prime concern within the sanitation sector, officially acknowledged with the current early retirement at 57, though many people work longer to increase their pensions. With the exception of sewage workers, there appear to be no long-term studies to confirm widespread claims of shortened life expectancy among sanitation workers. The stakes will be high on Wednesday for both the government and striking workers. Unions are organizing their eighth nationwide protest marches since January, and the third in nine days; the action is timed to coincide with a closed-door meeting of seven senators and seven lower-house lawmakers who will try to reach a consensus on the text of the bill. Success would send the legislation back to both houses for voting on Thursday. But nothing is certain, and the ticking clock appears to have fed the determination of strikers manning picket lines. ( Source AP)