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Faced with the shortage of fuel which threatens certain public services, Matignon announced on Tuesday the “requisition” of essential personnel from the Esso-ExxonMobil group on strike. An exceptional and radical legal weapon. Risky too.
The threat had been hovering for a few days already. Tuesday, October 11, the government went on the offensive. Faced with the social conflict disrupting the operation of refineries and depots in France, the Prime Minister announced the requisition of personnel for the unblocking of the fuel depots of the Esso-ExxonMobil group. “I asked the prefects to initiate (…) the procedure for requisitioning the personnel essential to the operation of the depots of this company”, launched Élisabeth Borne at the National Assembly during the session of questions to the government.
For the time being, the requisition requested by the executive concerns only the Esso-ExxonMobil group, where an agreement on salary increases has been reached. But she might quickly expand to TotalEnergieswhere negotiations always break down. Government spokesperson Olivier Véran also warned following Elisabeth Borne’s announcement that if the blockage persisted at TotalEnergies, the government would order the same requisitions.
“Law of necessity”
This procedure, exceptional to say the least, is legal. Article L2215-1 paragraph 4 of the General Code of Local Authorities provides for requisitions only in exceptionally serious cases, when the public authorities no longer have either the material means or the legal means to do otherwise. In these very limited cases, the prefects can then “requisition any property or service, request any person necessary for the operation of this service”. In other words, when the State is powerless to ensure public order, it can make this “law of necessity” prevail.
It is not a question for the State of restoring all the refineries to working order but of ensuring minimal operation, limited to “essential services” in order to allow priority intervention vehicles, such as those of the fire brigade, the Samu or the police to be supplied – without which the shortage might have direct consequences on the life and safety of the French people.
A precedent in 2010
This is not the first time that the executive has used this emergency device. Already in the fall of 2010, in the midst of pension reform, the government of Nicolas Sarkozy had unsheathed this exceptional weapon to put strikers back to work in refineries and bring France out of paralysis. But some requisitions had been challenged in court and prefectural judgments had then been quashed.
The administrative court of Melun had considered in particular that by “requisitioning almost all the personnel of the Total refinery in Grandpuits” […] and not by attempting to provide only the “minimum service”, the prefect had carried out a “serious and manifestly illegal attack on the right to strike”. But other requisitions had been validated by the courts. This is the case of the Total refinery in Gargenville in Yvelines: the judge in chambers had validated the prefect’s requisition, in particular because it was necessary to supply Roissy airport which had only three days of fuel left. .
Political and social risk
However, the current situation is different because there is no question of full requisition. But for the unions, any requisition, whatever it is, remains unacceptable because it calls into question the right to strike. In a press release, the CGT denounced an “unacceptable attack” once morest the right to strike and decided to suspend “its participation in all meetings with the government and employers during the period”. She also called on “all her organizations to massively support refinery employees, by going to the picket lines or by demonstrating in front of the prefectures and sub-prefectures”.
The fact remains that such a measure, however radical and effective it may be, can prove to be politically dangerous. In the current inflationary context, it might encourage unions to stir up an already tense social context. While the Nupes organizes Sunday, at the initiative of La France insoumise, a “march once morest the high cost of living”, this new passage in force might lead to a convergence of struggles.
