The tension in the supply of many service stations in France should persist after the CGT announced on Sunday October 9 that the strike in several refineries and fuel depots of TotalEnergies and Esso-ExxonMobil had been renewed. The movement has lasted for ten days and mechanically leads to a decrease in deliveries of gasoline and diesel.
“In the absence of a response from the general management” to the open letter sent on Saturday, “the movement has been renewed everywhere”, announced Eric Sellini, CGT coordinator at TotalEnergies. This concerns the Normandy refinery, which alone represents 22% of the territory’s refining capacity, that of Feyzin, the “Bio-refineries” de La Mède and the Flandres fuel depot. ExxonMobil’s two sites in Normandy and Fos-sur-Mer are “still at a total stop on Sunday”added Christophe Aubert, CGT manager.
The dispute is over wage claims. At TotalEnergies, the union is demanding a 10% increase on January 1 and retroactive to 2022, including 7% to catch up with the effects of inflation and 3% to “Sharing the Wealth”while the group announced 10.9 billion euros of profit in the first half and the payment to its shareholders of an interim exceptional dividend of 2.62 billion euros.
Management recalls that wages increased by an average of 3.5% in 2022 and refers to the negotiations scheduled for November 15 for 2023 wages. In its letter, the union had proposed negotiations from October 10 only on its wage demands. . Since, “It’s radio silence”Eric Sellini summarized.
Short-term solutions and incitement to social dialogue
As the crisis lasted and the dialogue got bogged down, the government played on several fronts to try to find a way out:
- Look for short-term solutions to resolve supply problems, which are particularly serious in Ile-de-France and Hauts-de-France. One of them consisted in authorizing trucks of more than 7.5 tons transporting hydrocarbons to circulate on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
- Reassure the public, by recalling that reserve fuel stocks exist and that restrictions at the pump are not envisaged. “We released strategic stock”, announced Christophe Béchu, Minister of Ecological Transition, Saturday on Franceinfo. His ministry then completed by stating that “France has 90 days of consumption in strategic stocks throughout its territory and the supply prospects for the weeks and months to come make it possible to rule out any risk of a lasting shortage”
- Finally, publicly incite the management and unions of TotalEnergies “ so that these wage negotiations succeed and do not penalize the French”, as Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne did on Friday. TotalEnergies manages almost a third of the 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, publicly attacked the CGT which “cannot take France hostage”.
Saturday at midday, just over one station in five (20.7%) was experiencing supply difficulties on at least one type of fuel, according to the Ministry of Energy Transition. In Pas-de-Calais and in the North, nearly 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”.