Given this situation, the government has “issued a requisition order». littlewolf1989 / stock.adobe.com
While fuel shortages are becoming widespread in France, especially in its southern half, the capital is in turn experiencing this phenomenon.
Are Paris airports in danger of running out of kerosene? The situation is “critiqueaccording to the government, which says it is ready to requisition strikers to resume fuel shipments from the Normandy refinery, the largest in France. its airports by Normandy “becomes critical“, indicated Thursday the Ministry of Energy Transition which has “issued a requisition order“with regard to the strikers, which was not notified”at this stageto employees of the refinery, which was shut down last weekend.
The General Directorate of Civil Aviation has been warning airlines for several days that the kerosene reserves at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle and Paris-Orly airports are “sous tensionprompting them to take their precautions. These tensions are added to the growing shortage of gasoline and diesel in the country’s service stations: according to AFP, 15% of French stations lacked one or the other of these fuels on Thursday, a rate which rises to more than 40% in Loire-Atlantique and in several departments of Brittany.
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Renewed requisitions
«When everyone tries to fill their tank to 100%, the system is not able to respond“Explained the CEO of Esso France, Charles Amyot, Thursday during a press conference presenting the financial results. According to him, the problem is primarily logistical, on the supply side of crude oil refineries, some ports being blocked, and on the side of gasoline deliveries to stations. Ditto for kerosene, he said, for which it is “not a stock problem». «The government is monitoring the situation hour by hour and department by department with professionals and prefects. We intervene in a targeted manner to unblock deposits that are obstructed by demonstrators. As soon as requisitions cannot be avoided, we will take our responsibilities“said Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
The government requisitioned for the first time three employees of the Esso refinery in Fos-sur-Mer on Tuesday, and it renewed these requisitions for 48 hours, to relieve the stations in the south of the country. For the TotalEnergies site in Gonfreville-L’Orcher, the prefecture did not send police to the employees to deliver the requisition letters but it dispatched a bailiff on Wednesday evening, according to Alexis Antonioli, CGT general secretary of the refinery. Thursday morning, twenty employees were still gathered with trade unionists, refusing to enter the refinery.
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Symbol
«The social movement is based on key sectors that are capable of having a very strong blocking impact, including that of refineries in the first place, so it was very important to come here to support them because it also rests on their shoulders“, declared Alma Dufour, deputy LFI present on the picket line. The TotalEnergies refinery in Normandy is on the same pipelines as the CIM (Compagnie industrielle maritime) in Le Havre and the neighboring Esso-ExxonMobil refinery in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon, which supply the Paris airports. Fuel shipments from the Esso refinery are also blocked, according to the CGT.
«The management limits itself to making the same proposals made to us during the night, telling us that they may agree to negotiate with the prefect the suspension of the requisitions, but the counterpart is to ship kerosene, which is totally absurd, because it amounts to making us ship what they are requisitioning us forsaid Antonioli. For the trade unionist, beyond the relatively modest quantities of kerosene, the State wishes to tackle a “symbol», that of the first refinery to have ceased production, and thus «break the strike movement».
TotalEnergies only has one in four refineries still in operation, at Feyzin near Lyon – from where strikers continue to block shipments. Two others (Donges, in Loire-Atlantique, and La Mède, in Bouches-du-Rhône) were arrested for reasons other than the strike. The only French refinery of the Petroineos company in Lavéra (Bouches-du-Rhône) also stopped because of the strike. The two Esso-ExxonMobil refineries, in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon and Fos-sur-Mer are still running, but fuel shipments remain blocked, according to the CGT.