The day after the eleventh day of national mobilization against the pension reform and on the eve of the Easter weekend, the social movement is marking time in the refineries. On Friday April 7, the employees of the Donges refinery (Loire-Atlantique) voted to suspend the strike until April 13, while the blockage of the La Mède biorefinery (Bouches-du-Rhône) was lifted.
Only the Gonfreville-l’Orcher refinery (Seine-Maritime), the largest in France, remains completely blocked. A prefectural decree requisitioning strikers on the Normandy site was suspended Thursday in summary proceedings by the administrative court of Rouen, considering that it infringed the right to strike and did not demonstrate that these requisitions were necessary “for the needs of public services “. On Friday, the employees, meeting in a general meeting, therefore decided to renew the strike at least until Tuesday morning.
“No product will enter or leave by then,” David Guillemard, delegate of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) at the site, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). The trade unionist is not afraid of other requisitions at this stage “since we are the only ones on strike” and that they would be, according to him, difficult to justify in the context of the court decision rendered on Thursday.
“Adapt the strategy” to stay engaged for the long term
In Donges, after a month of very close mobilization, the unions of the TotalEnergies refinery decided on Friday to suspend their strike until next Thursday, the day of the twelfth day of national action.
“It’s the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. We took note of the president’s stubbornness and concluded that this movement would last for a long time, “said Fabien Privé Saint-Lanne, CGT union representative (the majority union), at the end of a general assembly. He assured: “We are going to be Emmanuel Macron’s nightmare, his chewing gum, and we will not let go. It’s not a failure but a break to resume next week. »
The blockages of the La Mède biorefinery, near Marseille and the oil terminals of the large seaport of Marseille-Fos were also lifted on Friday. And, here again, the unions show their determination to pursue actions “in one form or another”, explained to AFP Fabien Cros, CGT delegate and spokesperson for the La Mède site, who castigates “a government until ‘hard-core and radical’.
“We are adapting our strategy” because “the objective is to last over time”, added Pascal Galéoté representing CGT of Fluxel, which manages the oil terminals of the large maritime port of Marseille-Fos. According to the trade unionist, 73 ships were still waiting Friday in the harbor of Fos-sur-Mer to be able to unload crude oil, refined products (diesel, gasoline) or chemicals.
Lionel Arbiol, of the CGT Esso in Fos-sur-Mer, said that even though the renewable strike ended on its site on Wednesday, the problems of crude oil supply remained, since fuel only leaves marginally and shipments are still disrupted.
On the side of the Esso refinery in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon, near Le Havre, the employees decided to return to work Thursday, after nineteen days of strike, “out of weariness at the lack of listening from the government, which does not care about gasoline shortage,” said Germinal Lancelin, general secretary of the CGT.
Fuel shortages persist in the Paris region
At the height of the mobilization, and before the first requisitions ordered by the government, no fuel came out of any of the six French refineries, around a thousand service stations in the country.
Fuel shipments from refinery inventories have gradually resumed, helping to nearly halve national shortages since Monday, to around 5.7%. A notable exception is the Paris region, where between 20 and 40 percent of stations run out of one type of fuel on Friday, often unleaded.
The most affected department is Val-de-Marne where one in ten service stations (9.52%) are dry on Friday, and almost one in two (40.48%) in shortage of gasoline. The situation is hardly more enviable in Hauts-de-Seine and Paris, with more than 30% of stations lacking a type of fuel, and to a lesser extent in Yvelines (24.49%), l Essonne (20.44%) and Seine-Saint-Denis (17.78%). The rupture rates are of the same order in Centre-Val de Loire and Pays de Loire, which represents a slight improvement compared to Monday.
Despite the lifting of the blockages, it will take several days to restart the facilities and production. The Donges refinery, which has been completely shut down for several weeks for technical reasons unrelated to the strike, takes almost eight days to restart, for example.