the arm wrestling hardens between the town hall of Paris and the State
On the tenth day of the garbage collectors’ strike against the pension reform, the accumulation of uncollected trash cans in the streets of Paris is at the heart of a political standoff between the government and the town hall of Paris. While the text passes the crucial stage of the Joint Joint Committee (CMP) on Wednesday March 15, and the CGT strikers voted to continue the movement “at least until March 20”the two camps pass the buck on the responsibility of limiting its effects.
Seven thousand six hundred tons of waste cluttered the sidewalks of the capital on Wednesday, according to the town hall. And the government, through its spokesperson Olivier Véran, accused the socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo of” impose “ to Parisians ” the results “ of his support for the strike movement.
From the start of the review of the reform at the end of January, the former presidential candidate of 2022 had chosen to display the Town Hall as “solidarity town hall” with the social movement. And Wednesday afternoon, the Council of Paris will be interrupted so that the elected representatives of the left can go to demonstrate, a decision which provoked protests from the right and the center.
“The town hall is not doing much to oppose the strike”estimates the mayor Les Républicains (LR) of 15e arrondis*****t Philippe Goujon, for whom Anne Hidalgo “cannot call for solidarity with the protesters and complain that Paris has become a city full of garbage”.
“Requisition resources”
Requested by the mayor LR of 7e district, Rachida Dati, who puts forward a “health risk”the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, instructed the Paris police chief on Tuesday evening to ask the town hall to “to requisition” means for disposing of garbage. If the town hall “does not follow up on the requisition, the State will take its place” to evacuate the garbage, we added in the entourage of Mr. Darmanin.
Beauvau affirms for his part that the request “was sent this [mercredi] morning at the town hall ». “We have not received any requisition request at this stage”, says the entourage of the elected socialist. Above all, the town hall “has no power” to requisition the strikers, reaffirms the entourage of Anne Hidalgo, who told Gérald Darmanin “that she did not intend to ask him to do so and advised him to favor dialogue rather than to force it”.
In a letter on Tuesday, the police headquarters nevertheless underlined, basing themselves – like Ms. Dati – on the general code of local authorities, that “the town hall has the security police on the public highway”. It is therefore “within its competence to require a private company or to requisition the agents”adds the prefecture, which says it can ” in a second time “ give notice to the City to do so.
If this procedure “remains unsuccessful, the prefect of police can replace himself” At the mayor, “in the event of an emergency when the observed or foreseeable breach of good order, health and public safety so requires”adds the prefecture.
“Let the State assume its responsibilities”
“Let the State assume its responsibilities”said Tuesday the first deputy (PS) Emmanuel Grégoire, according to whom the government “creates a social crisis and requires local authorities to request a requisition”. As to the use of private agents to act “on absolute emergencies”he acknowledged, it does not constitute “no substitute work at all. Anne Hidalgo and the elected representatives of this majority would never commit to breaking a strike movement”he assured.
Wednesday on BFMTV, the general secretary of the CFDT Laurent Berger challenged Gérald Darmanin:
“How do you requisition people? Are you looking for them one by one? It takes three thousand to collect waste in Paris. »
The town hall also stresses that the outcome of the crisis is played out above all at the door of the three incinerators in the inner suburbs blocked for ten days, and which do not depend on it but on the metropolitan union, Syctom. But on Tuesday, according to the prefecture, Syctom had not “requested the assistance of the police to lift these blockages”.
