The situation remains at a standstill at TotalEnergies. At the end of a new meeting at the headquarters of the oil giant in La Défense, the striking employees refused, on Wednesday evening October 12, a proposal from management to release deliveries early Thursday morning, as a condition for the opening in stride. salary negotiations.
“It is a massive categorical refusal, [les salariés] do not want this requirement to negotiate”, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Thierry Defresne, CGT secretary of the TotalEnergies Europe committee. A “negative outcome of the night’s discussions” confirmed, for its part, by TotalEnergies to AFP.
Earlier in the day, the management of the oil group had agreed for the first time to receive the CGT. Until now, it required as a prerequisite this lifting of the blockages to see the second union of the group.
Start of requisitions
At the same time, as announced by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, the Ministry of Energy Transition has launched the requisition of the personnel essential to the operation of the fuel depot at the Esso-ExxonMobil refinery in Port-Jérôme, in Seine-Maritime. . The decree was notified by the director of the site to four employees, two for Wednesday and two for Thursday, who will be forced to come and reopen the floodgates, under penalty of criminal sanctions.
Philippe Martinez, leader of the CGT, who came to support the employees of Esso-ExxonMobil, denounced a “scandalous decision” and announced the filing of a summary on Thursday, to oppose it.
The requisition does not target refinery operations and therefore fuel production. She “will ensure the shipment of the products”, “normally today towards the Paris region” by pipeline, said Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Esso France.
The strikers from the Flanders depot of TotalEnergies, near Dunkirk (North), will be the next to be requisitioned, the government assured.
The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, has planned a return to normal in the distribution of fuels “during the coming week”during an interview on France 2, Wednesday evening, also calling “responsibility” the management of TotalEnergies and the CGT.
Six out of seven refineries on strike
Six of the seven refineries in France were on strike on Wednesday: the four from TotalEnergies and the two from Esso-ExxonMobil; only that of Lavéra (Petroineos group) is not blocked. Added to this are the TotalEnergies depots in La Mède (Bouches-du-Rhône) and Flandres, which supply Hauts-de-France, both shut down. At Esso, an agreement was signed with two majority unions including the CFDT, but not with the CGT. The strike continued at its two refineries. Force Ouvrière, the fourth union among refining employees at TotalEnergies, has also joined the strike.
For now, the shortages continue, despite the government’s promise of improvement. Wednesday at 5 p.m., 30.8% of service stations in France lacked one or more fuels (31.3% Tuesday), according to the Ministry of Energy Transition. But Hauts-de-France, Ile-de-France and Centre-Val-de-Loire have significantly higher rates.
The cause of the conflict: wages. The CGT, which launched the strike on September 27 at TotalEnergies, is demanding a 10% increase for 2022, against the 3.5% obtained at the start of the year, in order to offset inflation and take advantage of the group’s exceptional profits. tanker.