Several refineries and fuel deposits are still blocked, the unions accusing the directions of refusing to negotiate wage increases. After ten days of conflict, the government wants to be optimistic and dismisses all restrictions on the pump.
Le Monde with AFP
The tension in the supply of numerous service stations in France should persist after the CGT announced, Sunday, October 9, that the strike in several refineries and deposits of Totalnergies and Esso-Exxonmobil has been renewed. The movement has been hard for ten days and mechanically leads to a decrease in fuel and diesel deliveries.
“In the absence of a response from the general management” to the open letter addressed on Saturday, “the movement was renewed everywhere,” announced Eric Sellini, CGT coordinator at Totalenergies. This concerns the Normandy refinery, which alone represents 22 % of the refining capacity of the territory, that of Feyzin, the “bio-raffine” of the Mède and the deposit of fuels of Flanders. The two sites of Exxonmobil in Normandy and Fos-sur-Mer are “still at total stop on Sunday”, added Christophe Aubert, CGT manager
The conflict relates to wage demands. In Totalenergies, the union claims an increase of 10 % on January 1 and retroactive on 2022, 7 % of which to catch up with the effects of inflation and 3 % to “share wealth”, while the group announced 10.9 billion euros of profit in the first half and the payment to its shareholders of an exceptional dividend deposit of 2.62 billion euros.
The management recalls that wages increased on average by 3.5 % in 2022 and refers to the negotiations scheduled for November 15 for wages of 2023. In its letter, the union had proposed negotiations from October 10 only on its wage demands. Since then, “it’s radio silence”, has summed up Eric Sellini.
short -term solutions and incentive to social dialogue
As the crisis lasted and the dialogue was bogged down, the government has played on several tables to try to find a way out:
- Look for short-term solutions to solve supply problems, particularly important in Ile-de-France and Hauts-de-France. One of them consisted in authorizing trucks over 7.5 tonnes carrying hydrocarbons to circulate Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
- Reassure the public, recalling that stocks of reserve fuels exist and that restrictions on the pump are not envisaged. “We have released from the strategic stock,” announced Christophe Béchu, Minister of Ecological Transition, Saturday on Franceinfo . Its ministry then completed by declaring that “France has 90 days of consumption in strategic stocks throughout its territory and the prospects for supply for the weeks and months to come and allow to rule out any risk of sustainable shortage”
- Finally, publicly encourage management and the Totalnergies unions “so that these salary negotiations lead and do not penalize the French”, as Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne did on Friday. Totalnergies manages almost a third of stations in France. If the government wanted to remain neutral, the right-wing opposition, via the president of the LR group in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau, got it publicly at the CGT which “cannot take France”.
Saturday at midday, a little more than one in five station (20.7 %) experienced supply difficulties on at least one type of fuel, according to the Ministry of Energy Transition. In Pas-de-Calais and in the North, almost 40 % of service stations were affected. The figures for Sunday have not yet been communicated, but according to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, “the situation should continue to improve”.