Tons of garbage piling up on sidewalks have turned Paris into the City of Blight as sanitation workers continued their strike for a 10th day Wednesday.

The creeping squalor is the most visible sign of widespread anger over a bill to raise the French retirement age by two years.

The stench of rotting food has begun escaping from some rubbish bags and overflowing bins.

Neither the Left Bank palace housing the Senate nor, across town, a street steps from the Elysee Palace, where waste from the presidential residence is apparently being stocked, was spared by the strike.

More than 7,000 tons of garbage had piled up by Tuesday, according to The Associated Press (AP).

Some of that was seen being tossed into white trucks from a private company along the protest route ahead of a planned march Wednesday, the third in nine days. Police said the clean-up was for security reasons.

Other French cities are also having garbage problems, but the mess in Paris, the showcase of France, has quickly become emblematic of strikers' discontent.

Losing luster

Portuguese tourist Fabio Figueirado wanted to admire beautiful buildings on a romantic getaway in Paris, but instead, he and his girlfriend have found themselves navigating pavements piled high with garbage.

"I've never seen a city with so much trash on the street," said the 25-year-old, near a mound of bulging bin bags across the road from the city's main opera house.

"They must collect it once a week or something, it's not very nice at all."

Tourists flock to Paris for fairy-tale walks and iconic monuments, but piles the trash are spoiling the experience for many foreign visitors.

Sitting near the Notre Dame cathedral, Martha Velasquez, 52, was tucking into ice cream with her family not far from another stream of black bags.

"I think it's really sad to see so much trash here in this beautiful city," said the visitor from Colombia.

"It's been several streets that we see piles of trash."

'I'll be poor'

The capital's municipal garbage collectors and cleaners voted Tuesday to extend their walkout until at least next Monday, a union representative told AFP.

Garbage collectors and truck drivers are opposed to their retirement age being pushed back from 57 to 59 if the new law is passed, the CGT union says.

They also want a wage increase so that they receive a slightly higher pension.

Murielle Gaeremynck, 56, is among those striking.

She said she had been working for more than two decades as a city garbage worker.

But when I retire, "I know I'll be poor," she said, explaining her pension would be less than 1,200 euros (around $1,200) a month.

Nabil Latreche, 44, said he and other municipal collectors had a grueling job and deserved a decent retirement.

"We work whether there's rain, snow, or wind," he said.

"When we're riding behind the truck, we breathe in all sorts of fumes. We often get sick from work."