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FuelsThe French government wants to requisition strikers
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne intends to requisition strikers in order to unblock the fuel depots of the Esso-ExxonMobil group.
Many motorists have been struggling to find gasoline in France for a few days. (illustrative image)
AFP
The government, under fire from critics while a third of the service stations are affected by shortages, announced Tuesday requisition measures to unblock the fuel depots of the Esso-ExxonMobil group if the strike, which also paralyzes the installations of TotalEnergies, was to be renewed.
During the session of questions to the government in the National Assembly, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne announced the requisition of personnel to unblock the fuel depots of the Esso-ExxonMobil group where a salary agreement was concluded Monday by two trade unions, the majority at the level of the group but not of its refineries.
“Social dialogue means moving forward once a majority has emerged. These are not minimum agreements. Management announcements are significant. Therefore, I asked the prefects to initiate, as permitted by law, the procedure for requisitioning the personnel essential to the operation of the depots of this company “in Gravenchon (Seine-Maritime) and Fos-sur-mer (Bouches- du-Rhône), said Elisabeth Borne.
Start of dialogue? TotalEnergies announced Tuesday evening to invite the representative unions which “do not participate in the strike movement” to a meeting of “consultations and exchanges” on Wednesday afternoon. “If the CGT lifts all site blockages before noon tomorrow, it will be welcome at this dialogue meeting,” said the French energy giant in a press release.
‘Not totally foreign’
“The government is not totally unrelated to the fact that Total has accelerated its schedule,” said Minister Delegate for Industry Roland Lescure on Tuesday evening on BFM Business. “We are not there to force the hand on negotiations, we are there to ensure that the process of social dialogue takes place,” he observed.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Energy Transition indicated that the requisition orders were “ready” but not yet taken. The ministry also wants to believe in a “resumption of activity”, in particular at the deposit of the Gravenchon refinery. “We hope that the recovery will continue and that we will not need to resort to requisition measures,” he added. A union source did acknowledge that there were slightly fewer strikers on Tuesday afternoon in Gravenchon, however refusing to speak of a return to work.
But in addition to Esso-ExxonMobil, the ministry indicated that a requisition order was also ready for the TotalEnergies fuel depot in Flanders, near Dunkirk. It “will be activated if the strike continues tomorrow despite the opening of negotiations envisaged”, the management saying it is ready to negotiate on Wednesday in the event of the lifting of the blockages, as requested by the CFDT.
“We will go to court”
However, the trend does not seem to be calming down: the employees of the Donges (Loire-Atlantique) refinery of TotalEnergies have planned to return to the movement on Wednesday. For their part, the Normandy refinery, the fuel depot in Flanders and the “bio-refinery” in La Mède (Bouches-du-Rhône) continued the movement, which was joined by motorway service stations from the Argedis network, subsidiary of TotalEnergies.
On the Esso-ExxonMobil side, the two refineries of Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon and Fos-sur-Mer have also decided to continue the strike, at the call of FO and the CGT. The CGT of TotalEnergies is demanding a 10% wage increase for 2022, against the 3.5% negotiated at the start of the year, the oil giant having made 10.6 billion dollars in profit in the first half of 2022.
In the event of a requisition, “we will go to court to have them canceled”, warned Eric Sellini, CGT coordinator for TotalEnergies, while the CGT of Esso-ExxonMobil denounced “a questioning of the right to strike”.
(AFP)