REPORTAGE
Security, tranquility, but above all cleanliness. Whether investing in "modern tools" (Rachida Dati) or "street managers" (Agnès Buzyn), the priority of cleanliness is branded everywhere in the programs of candidates for municipal elections in Paris, while the French capital received the inglorious title of "dirtiest city in Europe" in the English newspaper The Guardian . In the 18th arrondissement, north of Paris, the locals cannot deny it: rubbish strews the streets.
"It's incivility"
"There we are next to a container for the glass where there are a lot of garbage bags ripped open, and also urine", observes at the microphone of Europe 1 Emmanuel, who finishes his cigarette in front of a trash can and keeps his butt in hand. Almost every morning, this Parisian discovers new waste at the bottom of his building in the 18th arrondissement. "There are often groups of young people who will drink and leave their trash like that on the spot without picking up. However, there is a trash can fifty meters away. But they know that someone is going to come and clean up, so it's incivility. "
A little further down a shopping street, mountains of cardboard packaging thrown away by shops litter the sidewalks, as well as garbage cans full to the brim ... while the garbage collectors passed a few hours earlier. "The garbage collectors are not necessarily careful either," says Etienne. "Here we see them passing and sometimes they take the trash and waste remains on the ground in the street".
Awareness, night shifts and cleaning operations
Despite the filth, Parisians are constructive, like Eveline and Marie, two residents of the neighborhood. One of them thus suggests "giving messages of cleanliness, of ecology, because it fits: I think it's something that pays". The second, who comes back from Madrid, suggests taking a model from our Spanish neighbor: "There are teams there who shoot at night. And it's clean!". To no longer live surrounded by waste, Marie also offers cleaning operations with residents of neighborhoods affected by dirt.
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