“The street has made me the man I am”

At that time, you think back to your childhood dream …

For a long time, I thought you had to be pistonned and know someone in the municipal teams to become a garbage collector. I would never have imagined having the opportunity to win such a position. But in 2017, my neighbor’s friend told me that the city of Paris recruited. I immediately sent my CV, my cover letter and passed the competition. We were seven thousand candidates for two hundred and sixty-three places.

After eight years cleaning the streets in the capital, do you feel wear?

I am always outside, in rainy weather as in a heat wave. It is not obvious every day, but to choose, I better support the heat. The most common is not the weather or the work itself, but the behavior of people. Many throw their papers in front of us. They forget that if the sidewalks are clean, it is because someone picks up the waste.

Do the French lack civility?

Totally! Paris is not however devoid of garbage cans. In my videos, I sometimes put myself in the process of taking up the people who throw their cigarette megot on the ground. It is important to place them in front of the fait accompli, because they do not respect my job, but above all, they do not respect our planet.

Today you are a tiktok star. How did you join the social network where more than 400,000 people follow you now?

In 2018, the trash truck on which I worked was stuck in a plug. The people behind us started to insult ourselves: “What are you doing, do you have your coffee? Dirt from civil servants!” We couldn’t go forward, but nothing could be. I told my pair of filming the scene and I posted the video on Tiktok with the music of the film Cabbage soup To make fun of this behavior. The video has accumulated 345,000 views in a few hours. In my head, it did Tilt: I could give visibility to my job on social networks.

Don’t your colleagues find it strange if you spike your daily life?

They took me for an extraterrestrial at the start. Now they all want to participate in my videos. My chief is the first person who believed in me. While I had no more than three thousand subscribers, he perceived the potential. Today, even the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, follows me on social networks! Everyone understood that I register in a benevolent approach and that I had an important message to convey.

What is this message?

“Throw your waste in the trash.” A megot thrown on the ground can pollute up to five hundred liters of water (Driven by rainwater, sewers or in the sea, its heavy metals contaminate water, editor’s note) . In Paris, we collect four million butts every day! We have only one planet and I keep reminding this at my audience, mainly made up of 18-25 years. The other influencers sell them M … I pick it up. I want to be the ambassador of living together. It is my place in this world and I am very happy.

With such a speech, do you consider yourself an ecologist?

I have two phones, I buy new clothes … In short, I consume like everyone else. Anything you have can become waste. The real green is Robinson Crusoe and I’m not there. But I tell myself that throwing out all our trash in the good trash cans is already good.

Lack, Cantinier, mechanic … Many essential trades find their place on social networks. Why such a success?

We are simple, natural and true. Internet users like to see people who look like them. They are tired of fake personalities who display their daily lives in Dubai, when they should give an example. Our success shows that it is necessary to remain optimistic: it is possible to shoot good social networks. Thanks to them, I flourished.

They gave you the opportunity to wear the Olympic flame …

I even brought it twice! It was an experience that moved me a lot. The course was predefined and I was supposed to pass the cellist Gautier Capuçon without stopping. But he played the Hymn to love, that I could not resist the urge to kneel for a few seconds in front of him. This moment suspended, I will remember my whole life.