Thousands of tons of rubbish have accumulated in the streets of the French capital, a week after the start of a strike by waste collectors to protest against the government's pension reform project, the Paris City Council announced Sunday.

Three incinerators outside the capital have stopped working, with rubbish bags piling up entire sidewalks and containers overflowing.

And the "Sitcom" agency responsible for household waste announced that it had changed the route of waste collection trucks to other storage and treatment sites in the area, while it had not yet resorted to the police.

Over the past week, city cleaners have been collecting rubbish from only half of Paris' districts. The strike affected some of the city's most prominent areas, such as Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

Areas where private companies are responsible for waste collection have not been affected.

According to the far-left Confederation of General Labor (CGT), waste collectors and drivers can currently retire at the age of 57, but they will have to work an additional two years under reform plans that still allow early retirement for people whose working conditions are difficult.

The Confederation notes that life expectancy for waste collectors is between 12 and 17 years lower than the average for the entire country.

The main measure of the reform is to raise the general minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, something many see as unfair to people who started working at an early age.