French strike paths the streets of city of love with garbage

Rubbish is piling up on the streets of Paris as millions of foreigners and fans arrive for Euro 2016 soccer tournament.

The labour law strikes are turning Paris into a series of footpath tips.

Rubbish is piling up on streets in parts of Paris and other French cities as strikes by waste treatment workers take a toll in the country set to host the Euro 2016 soccer tournament from ­tonight.

The protests are part of a wave of demonstrations and stoppages led by the CGT union against government plans to reform ­labour law to make hiring and ­firing easier and help lower the jobless rate from 10 per cent.

Police removed blockades at some of the major incineration and rubbish collection depots around the capital but workers inside the premises later walked off work, the CGT said.

Despite signs that broader strike action is running out of steam, train services were ­disrupted for the eighth day running. The SNCF state railway company said less than 10 per cent of workers were on strike but services were still disrupted.

Working to defuse the ­conflict, Prime Minister Manuel Valls told parliament the state could take over all or part of an SNCF debt of €50 billion ($76.16bn), possibly hiving it off into a sinking fund to be paid down gradually. The CGT was holding workplace meetings to decide whether to call off the rail strike.

As millions of foreign visitors and football fans prepared for the month-long tournament that kicks off tonight, CGT activists also disrupted a pre-championship publicity event at Paris’s Gare du Nord train station.

About 200 protesters mobbed the station as the Euro soccer ­trophy arrived.

Separately, the minister in charge of drafting the contested labour law, Myriam El Khomri, condemned a dawn protest outside her Paris home in which she said about 30 demonstrators yelled hostile statements through a megaphone.

Mr Valls has refused to scrap the labour reform but, on top of the debt pledge, has agreed to protect existing rest and shift time quotas for workers in SNCF reorganisation talks.

Pilots at Air France are also planning to strike over pay curbs from June 11 to 14.

“The (rail) strike is incomprehensible and the one planned by pilots is every bit as incomprehensible when France is about to start the Euros,” Transport ­Minister Alain Vidalies said.

Reuters