- Pictures show Parisian streets overflowing with garbage as waste collectors continue their strike.
- They joined the millions of French workers protesting Emmanuel Macron's pension reform.
Parisians are having to live in filth as thousands of tons of garbage clog up the city's streets.
This is because waste collectors in Paris have been on strike since March 6, per The Guardian. The strike was originally intended to last for nine days, but has been extended until March 20, per the AFP.
They are amongst the millions of people who have taken to the streets since January to protest against French President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform, which proposes raising the retirement age from 62 to 64.
More than 7,000 tons of trash had piled up on streets across the city as of Wednesday, per The Guardian.
—Tayo Aina (@tayoainafilms) March 11, 2023
"Welcome to Paris," read a tweet from Youtuber Tayo Aina, which showed people skirting long lines of black trash bags dumped on the pavement.
—LOUIS (@LouisPisano) March 14, 2023
"The city smells like rotten ass and we're doing daily battle with the rats when we go outside," tweeted Louis Pisano, a journalist with Harper's Bazaar.
—Reuters (@Reuters) March 13, 2023
"Far cry from Emily In Paris, more like Ratatouille in Paris," wrote another Twitter user.
A fishmonger in Paris named Younis told The Guardian that his shop is storing waste from their gutted fish in the shop's own fridge. "That stuff would really reek if we left it outside. But soon we'll run out of space," he said.
Macron's plan to raise the general retirement age from 62 to 64 sparked outrage in France, per the BBC. The reform would mean that people would have to wait two more years to take out their pensions.
The reform plan resulted in two months of protests. On January 19, one million people across the country took to the streets to oppose Macron's proposal, the BBC reported.
The parliament is expected to vote on Macron's reform proposal on Thursday, per The Guardian.
A private refuse company, Derichebourg, has stepped in to collect trash in emergency situations in the most affected areas in the city, per the AFP.
But company executive Thomas Derichebourg told the AFP on Wednesday that it may stop intervening to clear the trash if they continue to get threats from workers on strike.
Representatives for the Derichebourg, the Paris Municipality, and the General Confederation of Labour in France did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.