On this Monday, March 27 in the morning, raw green dump trucks turn up in front of the waste incineration center straddling Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne) and 13e district of Paris. After three weeks of strike, it is supposed to have resumed its activity of harvesting and incinerating garbage cans in Paris and the inner suburbs, following the requisition of employees, twelve in number according to the CGT.
But more than two hundred opponents of the pension reform calmly block the passage of vehicles, forcing them to turn around to go and relieve themselves elsewhere, in Saint-Ouen, Romainville (Seine-Saint-Denis) or Villeparisis (Seine-et-Marne).
“But is it still useful, that we block? Disorganizing a bit? » worries a support of the strikers, on the spot since 7 am, which takes part in its first blockage. “Yes, it is very useful. But we will also have to come tomorrow morning,” answers Marc Bontemps, secretary general of the CGT energy production of incinerators in the Paris region.
Incinerator personnel belong to the mining-energy sector: by burning waste, they produce electricity and heat for district heating. “Even if the collection resumes, as long as we don’t burn, it’s 100,000 homes that are not heated! » insists the trade unionist.
Violation risk
With the refiners’ strike and the specter of a new fuel shortage capable of paralyzing France, as we saw in the fall of 2022, the garbage collectors’ strike at the Paris town hall, coupled with that of the staff of the incinerators in the inner suburbs, which caused the accumulation of 10,000 tonnes of waste in the capital, remains one of the salient fronts of opposition to pension reform.
On Friday March 24, the metropolitan union which manages the three incineration plants surrounding the capital (Ivry-sur-Seine, Issy-les-Moulineaux [Hauts-de-Seine]Saint-Ouen) announced to AFP the release of factories and “the final end” movement in two of them.
There was therefore an issue on Monday for the demonstrators from all sectors (RATP bus drivers, railway workers, teachers, students, feminists, the “rebellious” deputies Mathilde Panot, Antoine Léaument and Thomas Portes, the environmental adviser from Paris Alice Coffin…) to prevent the entry of skips, to make the requisition of striking personnel ineffective. Which cannot block itself, at the risk of infringing.
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