![]() “It doesn’t bother me because it’s for a good cause,” said Franck Jacquot, 51, standing outside a small bar he runs. Other restaurants are suffering the same fate, said Guillaume, who would identify himself only by his first name. Seats at some sidewalk cafes located near heaps of rubbish are empty.Ī server for the past 26 years at Le Bistro du Dome specializing in fish, adjacent to the famed restaurant Le Dome, said some 50% of diners had disappeared in the past 10 days. The scent of rancid, rotting garbage increasingly wafts through the air as spring arrives and the weather grows milder. Some of Paris’ fabled narrow streets are more choked than usual, forcing people on foot to pass through garbage heaps single file. The city’s vibrant outdoor culture is feeling the effects. ![]() But it is the garbage in the French capital that has made garbage collectors, long taken for granted, visible – and their anger obvious. Workers in numerous sectors, from transportation to energy, have been holding intermittent strikes since January. With incinerators blocked, the garbage was being taken to a storage site outside Paris. Sure enough, a green Paris garbage truck was seen collecting a long, high pile of rubbish Tuesday outside a school on a Left Bank street – although the truck was full long before all the refuse could be cleaned up. Police Chief Laurent Nunez then ordered garages unblocked and ordered 674 sanitation personnel and 206 garbage trucks back to work to provide a minimal service, police tweeted Tuesday. City Hall refused orders to get the trucks out, saying it’s not their job. The Socialist mayor of Paris, who supports the strikers, found herself in a bind. Posters showing a digitally altered images of Macron atop a garbage heap – or collecting garbage himself – have made the rounds on social networks. And neither unions organizing protests nor some citizens are prepared to back down. The bill is now considered adopted.īut garbage got wrapped up in the politics. On Monday, the government won two no-confidence motions put forth by angry lawmakers. Macron rammed the showcase legislation of his second term through Parliament last week – without a vote, thanks to a special constitutional article. He is among the majority of French who, polls show, oppose President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to raise the retirement age by two years, from 62 to 64 for most and from 57 to 59 for garbage collectors.
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