Here, a heap of cans and food packaging, there, abandoned clothes alongside ripped garbage bags and broken glass bottles on the sidewalk, stained with traces of urine. "Paris has never been as dirty as since the beginning of confinement", on March 17, rebel Internet users who flood social networks with unpleasant photos and furious comments.
Especially since the Covid-19 health crisis has added to the list of effusions and jets of all kinds, those of masks and protective gloves, which now litter the sidewalks and gutters of the capital.
Towards tougher sanctions?
So much so that the phenomenon snatched a cry of anger from Anne Hidalgo's first deputy, Emmanuel Grégoire, who is considering a specific contravention, at a dissuasive price , which could be increased beyond the 68 euros sanctioning the jets of garbage and butts on the public highway.
Before him the garbage collectors were moved, suggesting with irony that providing a broom to some would be more useful than providing them with a mask.
Particularly affected, the residents of the districts in the northeast of the capital denounce the "relegation" of which they claim to be victims. In the tenth, eleventh, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which are home to wandering populations, drug addicts, local residents suffered doubly from confinement, and from the reduction in the number of rounds of cleaning agents.
"We would have hoped that the confinement would give the city an opportunity for a major cleanup"
“Sunday, I myself swept the gutter, in front of my house, explains Olivier Ansart, the president of the Association for the follow-up and development of the north-east of Paris (ASA PNE), who lives in the Chapelle district (Eighteenth). Since the start of the health crisis, garbage, cans, and now masks, can remain a week before being picked up. It is all the more alarming that in many points, the water does not work, which reinforces the uncleanness. We would have hoped that the confinement would give the city an opportunity for a major clean-up… This was not the case, and now, in addition to the health problem, there is the environmental question with masks and gloves which are not not biodegradable. "
The anger of northeast Paris
In the district of the two stations (Xe), places du Colonel-Fabien, Stalingrad (XIXe), de la Chapelle (XVIIIe), same observation, even if the cleaning rounds start to gain momentum, in places.
“My street is a trash can. This is the reflection I have been doing every day since I go out again, indignant Daniel, a resident of the Chapel. It is to wonder if we have not been wiped off the map! Even the squares, normally closed to the public, are littered with rubbish to the delight of swarming rats, like gutters, inaccessible to cleaning machines when cars are parked. It is a vision of apocalypse… ”
Paris Newsletter
Every morning, the news of your department seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
-
"We are gradually increasing the workforce in the field"
Protective masks and gloves thrown on the public highway appeared since the deconfinement. Are you worried about the phenomenon?
Paul Simondon, cleaning assistant to the mayor of Paris. Of course ! Put on a mask to protect yourself, then throw it on the ground in the most perfect indifference, it is intolerable and disturbing: to succeed in this deconfinement it will really be necessary to be attentive to each other and think, also, of the garbage collectors who take risks , despite their protections, picking this up, and are exasperated by these very aggressive incivilities. There are 30,000 baskets in the streets of Paris! And the best solution remains, moreover, to put your protective equipment in a closed garbage bag, at home, and to wait 24 hours before throwing it away.
The question of a PV dedicated to this type of behavior is under study…
Yes, you have to strike hard against this new type of incivility, and 68 euros is not enough. We are thinking of an amount that is more dissuasive, on a scale that would, of course, be framed by the legislator.
Parisians complain about the amount of waste which they say increased in public space during confinement ...
It was a choice to reduce the number of cleaning agents mobilized on the public highway, for their safety. We have reduced field trips, in particular sweeping, in favor of working in vehicles. However, many targeted actions have been organized, in priority sectors, determined with the mayors of boroughs: around hospitals, nursing homes, schools that welcome children. But there are still problematic areas, those where people wandering around, street vendors…
When should the cleaners resume full time?
Since May 11, the workforce in the field has been gradually increased, among the 7,500 agents, by adapting their schedules, so that they are not too numerous in the changing rooms, in particular, and with permanent concern for their safety. Next week everything should be in full swing.
VIDEO. Dirt in Paris: "We are not going to clean each street 5 times a day"