Trash Piles Up in Paris as Protests Continue Prior to Euro 2016

Trash piled up on streets in parts of Paris and other French cities Wednesday as strikes and pickets by waste treatment workers, which began May 30, took a toll on the country as it prepares to hosts the Euro 2016 soccer tournament on Friday.

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The protests were part of a wave of demonstrations and work stoppages led by the General Confederation of Labor, CGT, against government plans to reform labor law to make it easier to fire workers, at a time when the jobless rate is at 10 percent.

"Our salary did not change in seven years, we cannot make ends meet, we can't buy food for four even if we go to hard-discounters, not caterers!" unionized waste collector Vincent told AFP.

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Police removed blockades at some of the major incineration and trash collection depots around the capital but to little effect because workers inside the premises subsequently walked off work, the CGT said.

Despite signs that broader strike action is running out of steam, train services were disrupted for a seventh straight day.

The CGT held workplace meetings Wednesday to decide whether to call off the rail strike.

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Meanwhile, millions of foreign visitors and soccer fans prepared for the month-long tournament that kicks off Friday evening.

CGT activists also disrupted a pre-championship publicity event at Paris's Gare du Nord train station.

About 200 protesters, most wearing bright-colored CGT jackets, mobbed the station as a locomotive carrying the Euro soccer trophy arrived, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.

Separately, the minister in charge of drafting the contested labor 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.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls has refused to scrap the labor reform but his government has sought to bring the railway protest to an end by offering guarantees to protect existing rest and shift time quotas in SNCF reorganization talks.