"At least until March 20": garbage collectors and cleaners of the City of Paris, who contest the pension reform project, voted Tuesday to continue their strike in the capital where waste piles up on the sidewalks.

In the middle of the evening, because of the "sanitary conditions" prevailing in Paris, Gérald Darmanin instructed the prefect of police of Paris, Laurent Nunez, to ask the town hall to "requisition" means to evacuate the garbage.

Some 7,000 tons of uncollected garbage were counted on the ninth day of the strike, according to the first deputy mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, who deplores a "catastrophic situation created by the government".

If the town hall does not respond to the request for requisition, "the State will replace," said the entourage of the Minister of the Interior. This means that the State will requisition resources to collect and evacuate waste.

"We block but we do not do anything"

Place Beauvau, mention was also made of the letter sent to the minister by the LR mayor of the seventh arrondissement of Paris, Rachida Dati, to intervene. An episode that comes at a time when the presidential majority needs the support of LR parliamentarians for the adoption of its pension reform that it hopes for Thursday.

On Tuesday, the blockade of the incinerator of Ivry-sur-Seine, south of Paris, was prolonged and the strikers organized to hold the pickets at night. "We block but we do not do anything," says Julien Lejeune, 44, an agent of the mayor of Paris in charge of wastewater and delegate CGT. "We do guard tours, we monitor that there is no deterioration of the equipment or intrusion."

The incinerator of Ivry - the largest in Europe with nearly 700,000 tons of waste treated each year and managed by the public operator Syctom - has been shut down since March 6, as has the one in Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine), also on strike. That of Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis) is under maintenance.

The strikers say they feel "supported by the majority of the population". "We see that public opinion is on our side, it's a pleasure," said Guillaume Konrad, 38, head of the Paris sewer office. "Even the police came by yesterday (Monday) to encourage us," he said.

Provincial towns affected

The movement also affects some provincial towns. In Rennes, the strike started on Monday and the collection could not be carried out on Tuesday, according to the Suez group, which is in charge of it. Collection is also disrupted in Saint-Brieuc (Côtes-d'Armor).

Actions have also disrupted waste collection in Nantes, as well as in Seine-Maritime. Tuesday morning, "a hundred demonstrators blocked the trucks" at the waste treatment center of the Metropolis of Rouen, assured Gerald Le Corre of the departmental union CGT.

The mayor of Paris, whose agents manage the collection of household waste in half of the districts, says it is "in solidarity" with the social movement. A position attacked by the government.

On Tuesday, the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, said on France 2 expect the mayor of Paris "to take concrete measures such as the pooling of collection and storage between arrondissements, or even requisition". "The requisition consists in forcing strikers to come and do their work: it is a competence of the State on a problem created by the State," Emmanuel Grégoire replied in the afternoon.

The City "puts in place palliative measures" and "it is more than the minimum service" that is provided with 23,000 tons collected out of 30,000 in ten days, he said, acknowledging that he uses private agents "on absolute emergencies".

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