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Rubbish piles up in strike-bound Paris

Thousands of tonnes of garbage have piled up on streets across the French capital after a week of strike action by dustbin collectors against government pension reforms, city hall said Sunday.

Published: 12 March 2023 18:31 CET
Rubbish collectors of the Paris municipality cleaning service
Rubbish collectors of the Paris municipality cleaning service "Proprete de Paris" gather in front of Ivry incinerator factory, in Ivry on March 6, 2023, ahead of the massive strikes from March 7 against the French government's proposed pension reform, with unions promising to bring the country "to a standstill". Photo: Thomas SAMSON / AFP

Three incineration plants outside the capital have been hit by the work stoppages that have left entire pavements covered in black bags and overflowing bins.

The capital’s household waste agency Syctom said it has been re-routing dustbin lorries to other storage and treatment sites in the region and has yet to resort to calling in the police.

City hall employees have for the last week been picking up rubbish in just half of Paris’s districts. The strike has hit some of the most exclusive areas including the 5th, 6th and 16th arrondissements.

Other districts are served by private firms which have not gone on strike.

According to the hard-left CGT union, refuse collectors and drivers can currently retire from 57 years of age, but would face another two years of work under the reform plans which still grant early retirement for those who faced tough working conditions.

Life expectancy for the garbage workers is 12-17 years below the average for the country as a whole, the CGT says.
 
Out on the streets, 18-year-old student Christophe Mouterde told AFP the dustbin collectors were among “the first victims of this reform… often they have started work young… in a job that’s more difficult than for other people in offices”.
 
Pastry chef Romain Gaia, who works in the 2nd district where bins are not being collected, said, “It’s terrible, there’s rats and mice.”
 
 
But he still offered support for the garbage workers despite the smelly mountains of rubbish nearby.
 
“They are quite right to strike,” said the 36-year-old. “Normally they have no power, but if they stop work they really have (power).”
 
The reform’s headline measure and the cornerstone policy of President Emmanuel Macron’s second term in office is a hike in the general minimum retirement age to 64 from 62, seen by many as unfair to people who start working early.
 
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POLITICS

France’s Uyghurs say Xi visit a ‘slap’ from Macron

Uyghurs in France on Friday said President Emmanuel Macron welcoming his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping next week was tantamount to "slapping" them.

Published: 4 May 2024 15:23 CEST
France's Uyghurs say Xi visit a 'slap' from Macron

Xi is due to make a state visit to France on Monday and Tuesday.

Dilnur Reyhan, the founder of the European Uyghur Institute and a French national, said she and others were “angry” the Chinese leader was visiting.

“For the Uyghur people — and in particular for French Uyghurs — it’s a slap from our president, Emmanuel Macron,” she said, describing the Chinese leader as “the executioner of the Uyghur people”.

Beijing stands accused of incarcerating more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of detention facilities across the Xinjiang region.

Campaigners and Uyghurs overseas have said an array of abuses take place inside the facilities, including torture, forced labour, forced sterilisation and political indoctrination.

A UN report last year detailed “credible” evidence of torture, forced medical treatment and sexual or gender-based violence — as well as forced labour — in the region.

But it stopped short of labelling Beijing’s actions a “genocide”, as the United States and some other Western lawmakers have done.

Beijing consistently denies abuses and claims the allegations are part of a deliberate smear campaign to contain its development.

It says it is running vocational training centres in Xinjiang which have helped to combat extremism and enhance development.

Standing beside Reyhan at a press conference in Paris, Gulbahar Haitiwaji, who presented herself as having spent three years in a detention camp, said she was “disappointed”.

“I am asking the president to bring up the issue of the camps with China and to firmly demand they be shut down,” she said.

Human Rights Watch on Friday urged Macron during the visit to “lay out consequences for the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity and deepening repression”.

“Respect for human rights has severely deteriorated under Xi Jinping’s rule,” it said.

“His government has committed crimes against humanity… against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, adopted draconian legislation that has erased Hong Kong’s freedoms, and intensified repression of government critics across the country.”

“President Macron should make it clear to Xi Jinping that Beijing’s crimes against humanity come with consequences for China’s relations with France,” said Maya Wang, acting China director at Human Rights Watch

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