#SaccageParis, this is the hashtag launched by PanamePropre, a Parisian for twenty year who claims in an interview with Le Parisien he has seen “the city deteriorates since Anne Hidalgo arrived as Mayor”. Over 24,000 tweets have been published by anonymous over the weekend to condemn the “general state of disrepair”, as well as “at least three-week old bird excretions” showing pictures of packed bins and dirty streets.
The goal? “Keeping on pressuring the City”
This Parisian wished to raise his voice so that “Paris can become one of the greatest and most beautiful cities in the world again, where living is good, where one can bicycle, but where one does not fight with cars, where one feels safe”, he told Le Parisien.
Quelques photos valent plus que de longs discours. La preuve par l’image, ici et dans tout Paris. #saccageparis https://t.co/bDSq2MKDMd
– ParisPropre (@PanamePropre) March 27, 2021
Tweet reads: “A few pictures are worth more than long speeches. Pictures as evidence, here and everywhere in Paris”.
Right-winged elected representatives have taken over the infatuation to put in their two cents. Paris 7th arrondissement Mayor Rachida Dati – who lost the municipal elections – claim for the immediate gathering of an exceptional Council of Paris to focus on hygiene and cleanliness issues.
#saccageparis : Face au déni de réalité de l’équipe municipale, nous exigeons la tenue immédiate d’un Conseil de Paris exceptionnel consacré aux problèmes de propreté et de salubrité à #Paris. https://t.co/JZo87zjlFC
— Rachida Dati ن (@datirachida) April 4, 2021
Tweet reads: “Faced with the denial of the reality from the municipal team, we demand the immediate gathering of a Council of Paris to focus on hygiene and cleanliness issues in Paris”.
“Disparagement campaign” – the Mayor finds.
Paris Mayor entered the fray on Twitter. On the City’s official account, one can read a defense speech: “The City of Paris is enduring a disparagement campaign via #saccageparis” arguing “like in any city in France, Paris is facing rudeness and issues to regulate the public place”. According to the communication staff, “some pictures posted are old or taken before the cleaning teams arrived”. She confesses that the teams – of 2,500 cleaning officers – “are currently 10% down because of the spread of coronavirus (contact cases or carriers), leading to cleaning delays”.
Back to October 2020, Paris Mayor shared her plan to make Paris cleaner. She promised cleaning officers managing neighborhoods: one office per neighborhood, namely 121, and a bit over 160 officers entrusted with answering descriptions made on the “Dans ma rue” application to act quicker and develop “Trilib’” namely self-service sorting terminals in the public place.
Budget for expenses focusing on collecting and reuse waste and urban cleanliness reaches €265.5M in 2021, according to the report, including €56.2M for private collect of trash and multi-material; €14.8M for street trash collect; €10.3M for glass collect; €4.7M for making collect containers available; €15.5M for mechanical cleaning of streets; and €6.8M for removing graffiti – a budget increased up to €2.8M because of illegal poster campaigns. 2,500 officers are hired to make it work and clean the 85sqkm that Paris covers.
As for them, several garbage collectors entered the fray as well and claim for staff to be respected. Active on Tiktok, Snapchat, and Twitter, Ludovic shows videos of syringes left on the ground, cigarette butts burning in a bin. He says, “it would be great for minds to change as well, wouldn’t it? The bin is empty, garbage collectors must come here often, or people throw everything aside”.
