IN PICTURES: Paris bins overflow as waste depot strike continues

Workers at the three huge incinerator plants - in Ivry sur Seine (Val-de-Marne), Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine) and Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis) - that process most of Paris' waste have been striking for 13 days now.

 

According to the hardline CGT union, 60 percent of workers at the three waste depots are striking.

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While majority of the city's waste collectors are not striking, with the plants partially closed and the ovens turned off, there is nowhere to take the garbage. 

 

The pile-ups have been limited to certain parts of the city, with the arrondissements in the city centre being the hardest hit.

The demonstration is the latest in the long series of ongoing protests over plans to reform the French pension system - the same dispute that paralysed public transport in Paris and on the country's railways in December and early January.

The French government wants to do away with the 42 different pension regimes that the country currently operates and instead have one single, universal system.

Under the current system many public sector workers have 'special regimes' that allow them to retire earlier than the legal retirement age of 62.

 

The government has promised to keep early retirement exemptions for certain professions such as firefighters, police and the military.

But workers at the city incinerator plants argue that they should continue to be allowed to stop work early because their life expectancy is seven years less than for the average French person.

 

In a city where public parks have battled rodent infestations in recent years, the trash pile-ups have raised public health concerns.

 

Pictures of the uncollected waste have been posted on Twitter alongside messages asking the government to intervene.