5,600 metric tons of uncollected garbage littered the sidewalks of Paris on Monday, March 13. Part of the Parisian sanitation workforce has been on strike for over a week, protesting the pension reform, and the three incinerators that handle the capital’s garbage are at a standstill . An easy point of attack for the various groups who oppose the mayor of Paris. For them, Anne Hidalgo “in solidarity with the protest movement,” is the cause of everything. She has turned the capital into a giant open-air garbage can that is never cleaned. It is an avalanche. Sylvain Maillard, MP and president of the Renaissance party in Paris, is on Twitter criticizing City Hall, which “has to stop supporting the garbage collection strike. The cleanliness of the city comes before petty political calculations.” The elected Macron supporter advocates requisitioning dumpster parks and blockaded incinerator sites.
Rachida Dati, leader of the Parisian Les Républicains (LR), wants “implementation of a minimum service for garbage collection. (…) A necessity that I keep demanding to avoid any health and safety risks during the strike period” and declares that “as mayor of Paris, from the beginning of my term in 2026, I will implement this as part of a total reorganization of the Parisian cleaning services.”
Even the federal government is getting involved. Clément Beaune, Minister of Transport and possible candidate for mayor of Paris in 2026, is vehement: “Stench and rot. No emergency measures, even partial by the City of Paris. Yet another example of inaction and contempt for Parisians.” A tweet by Emmanuel Gregoire described a “disgusting, demagogic one-upmanship.”
We are interested in your experience using the site.
The first deputy mayor of Paris called a press conference on Monday afternoon to contradict “this crude instrumentalization of the government. This is a situation that Metz, Saint-Brieuc, Le Havre are facing … Is Clément Beaune asking Edouard Philippe [mayor of Le Havre] to proceed with requisitions? This is petty politics, the public won’t be fooled. This is a national protest that is the responsibility of the government. It would be more logical for him to withdraw his pension reform project.”
In the meantime, there is the eternal debate about drafting garbage collectors and/or requisitioning incineration sites. “It is an initiative and an authority restricted solely to the state!” Grégoire retorted, exclaiming that he is “astonished by so many inaccuracies by the majority.” Establishing a minimum service? “It’s legally prohibited. The right to strike is a constitutional principle that we cannot and will not circumvent. We are doing what we can to limit the damage,” the first deputy mayor insisted.
You have 46.92% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.