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
PARIS (AP) — The City of Light is losing its luster with tons of garbage piling up on Paris sidewalks as sanitation workers were on 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 stench 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 7,000 tons of garbage had piled up by Tuesday. Some of that was seen being tossed into white trucks from a private company along the protest route ahead of a planned march Wednesday, the third in nine days. Police said the clean-up was for security reasons.
Other French cities are also having garbage problems, but the mess in Paris, the showcase of France, has quickly become emblematic of strikers’ discontent.
