A new site joins those affected by the strike. Until then spared by the movement, the TotalEnergies refinery in Donges, near Saint-Nazaire in Loire-Atlantique, will also go on strike Wednesday morning at 5 a.m., announces a CGT union representative to AFP, confirming information from Presse Océan .
“What makes us react: there are two points. Firstly, Total’s complete blocking of the discussions and demands of our colleagues from other establishments for almost three weeks now (…) And secondly, the requisitions which have just been made by Elisabeth Borne within Exxon, which are an attack on the constitutional right to strike”, declared Fabien Privé Saint-Lanne, the secretary of the CGT union at the Donges refinery.
Several sites are already on strike, such as the Normandy refinery, the Flanders fuel depot, near Dunkirk and the “bio-refinery” of La Mède (Bouches-du-Rhône), which have renewed the movement. They have also been joined by motorway service stations from the Argedis network, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies.
Requisitions already planned at Esso-ExxonMobil
On the Esso-ExxonMobil side, the two refineries of Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon (Seine-Maritime) and Fos-sur-Mer, have also renewed the strike movement, at the call of FO and the CGT, despite the signature the eve of a wage agreement by two majority organizations at the level of the group but not of the refineries, specified the CGT.
In response to the crisis, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne announced on Tuesday the requisition of personnel to unblock the fuel depots of the Esso-Exxonmobil group. “At Total, the reformist unions called for the opening of negotiations. Management responded positively. I hope that the other representative unions will seize this outstretched hand, because social dialogue is always more fruitful than conflict,” said Elisabeth Borne. “Failing that, the government will act, again, to unblock the situation,” she added.