On the 10th day of the garbage collectors' strike in the capital, the government decided to force its way through. Unsurprisingly, the prefect of police of Paris, Laurent Nuñez, on the orders of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, informed Anne Hidalgo in the evening of his decision to requisition garbage collectors, which she had refused to do beforehand.

On Tuesday evening, Gérald Darmanin had warned that if the PS mayor of Paris refused to proceed with the requisitions herself, the State would do so for reasons of public health. On Wednesday afternoon, before the Senate, the Minister of the Interior said it again.

While the pension reform project has passed the crucial stage of the joint committee (CMP), 7,600 tons of waste cluttered Wednesday morning the sidewalks of the capital, according to the town hall. The conflict of the garbage collectors gave a bad image of Paris, especially abroad, which the government and the town hall quickly used on the political field.

The town hall and the state pass the responsibility on to each other

Through the voice of its spokesman Olivier Véran, the executive accused Anne Hidalgo of "imposing" Parisians "the consequences" of her support for the strike movement against pensions. From the beginning of the examination of the reform at the end of January, the former presidential candidate of 2022 had chosen to display the City Hall as a "solidarity town hall" of the social movement.

The replica of the Town Hall was immediate. "It is paradoxical that the State asks local authorities to solve a problem that it has itself created when requisition is, by right, a competence of the State," Anne Hidalgo replied to Laurent Nuñez.

Three waste incinerators shut down

In a letter on Tuesday, the prefecture of police had stressed, based on the General Code of Territorial Collectivities, that "the town hall holds the health police on the public road". It is therefore "within its competence to request a private company or to requisition the agents", had added the prefecture, considering that it could "in a second time" put the City on notice to do so.

In fact, it will be complicated for the prefect to proceed with these requisitions on Thursday, when the Senate and then the National Assembly must decide on the adoption of the pension reform project, with or without recourse to article 49-3 which allows adoption without a vote.

The town hall also stressed that the outcome of the crisis was played out above all at the door of the three incinerators in the suburbs blocked for ten days, and which do not depend on it but on the metropolitan union, Syctom.

  • Pension reform 2023
  • Strike
  • Economy
  • Society