Incidents erupted late Tuesday morning in front of the Fos-sur-Mer oil depot, near Marseille, where the authorities carried out the first requisitions of staff on strike against the pension reform.
Several hundred trade unionists, mainly from the CGT, had gathered in front of the depot “in support” of the requisitioned strikers, blocking one of the accesses to the site and lighting pallet fires, noted AFP journalists.
At midday, this tense face to face continued.
At the start of the day, the demonstrators headed for the Fos depot during snail operations, in particular aboard dozens of blue vehicles with the Enedis logo and adorned with banners protesting against the pension reform, such as “Macron your reform in your ass. On strike. No at 64”.
With these requisitions targeting the Fos-sur-Mer depot, the Bouches-du-Rhône police headquarters proceeded on Tuesday with the first requisitions of personnel since the start of the strikes against the pension reform, in an inflammable political context in the aftermath of the adoption of this reform via Article 49.3 in the National Assembly.
Significant tensions had appeared in recent days on the supply of service stations in the Bouches-du-Rhône and throughout the Southeast. Monday, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, 50% of the stations were short of at least one fuel and 37% completely dry.
The Fos-sur-Mer depot supplies the Paca region and the east of the Occitanie region and also ships fuel by pipeline to the Lyon region.
This measure announced Tuesday morning by the Ministry of Energy Transition sounds like a challenge to the boss of the CGT in the Bouches-du-Rhône, Olivier Mateu, who affirmed in February that, during the conflict in the refineries in the fall around the salaries, the 13th had been “the only department where there was no requisition”.