“I really want to have a message here (…) calling for calm,” said the president following an informal European summit in Prague. “I also call on each and everyone to be responsible. (…) All wage demands are legitimate, but they must not prevent each other from living and being able to circulate”.
A little earlier, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne had called “to the responsibility of the managements and the representatives of the employees of these companies” so that the salary negotiations succeed, at the end of an intervention in Bordeaux, during the Convention of intermunicipalities of France.
“I call on the companies concerned, which, for the most part, still have good results, to also consider requests for a salary increase”, Olivia Grégoire, Minister Delegate for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, previously declared on Franceinfo. without mentioning by name TotalEnergies and its 10.6 billion dollars of profit in the first half.
CEO Patrick Pouyanné has not spoken publicly regarding the strike, but in an internal group video on Tuesday, he acknowledged that “the company’s results are exceptional in 2022 and we will not forget you”.
“All employees, all our colleagues will receive their just reward on their payslip before the end of the year”, promised Mr. Pouyanné, assuring them that they were “priority in the sharing of prosperity”.
While the CGT is demanding a 10% increase in 2022 – 7% for inflation, 3% for “wealth sharing” – management has been recalling from the start that it has granted wage measures representing an average increase. 3.5% in 2022 and refers to a negotiating session scheduled for November 15 … for wages in 2023. At the latest news, she seemed inflexible on this timetable.
The largest TotalEnergies refinery, near Le Havre (Seine-Maritime), is shut down. Other sites of the group are on strike. And the two French refineries of the American Esso-ExxonMobil are also stopped, in both cases at the call of the CGT, in order to obtain a wage increase.
“Significant difficulties”
Tankers will be exceptionally authorized to circulate on Sunday to deliver the stations.
At the French oil company, in addition to its Normandy refinery, the strikers were massively mobilized at the fuel depot in Flanders, near Dunkirk (North), at the “bio-refinery” in La Mède (Bouches-du-Rhône) and at the depot of fuels from Grandpuits (Seine-et-Marne) in particular, to limit the outflow of petroleum products as much as possible, according to the CGT.
At the Feyzin refinery (Rhône), there were “between 80 and 100% strikers” in the strategic shipping department, Pedro Afonso (CGT) told AFP.
Blockades by strikers lead to lower fuel deliveries, so petrol stations are more often out of stocks of petrol or diesel. TotalEnergies manages almost a third of French stations.
But the group also puts the disturbances on the account of the success of the discount at the pump of 20 cents which it grants since September 1, in addition to the rebate of the State of 30 cents.
At 1:00 p.m. on Friday, “19% of service stations” in France “were experiencing difficulties with at least one product”, according to an updated point from the Ministry of Energy Transition, which referred to “in Ile-de-France a stable situation at 25% of stations having difficulty with at least one product.”
The behavior of some motorists has prompted the State to ban the sale and purchase of fuel in jerry cans, particularly in certain departments of Hauts-de-France, where the stations have been stormed.
The Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher acknowledged following a meeting with prefects in Arras that tensions were “significant” in Pas-de-Calais and the North, but assured that the situation was improving. In Pas-de-Calais, 52% of the stations had, according to her, “difficulties” on Thursday and 42% today. In the North, it was 47% Thursday and 43% Friday.
She underlined that the government had set up transport of fuel from Belgium and by boat via the port of Rouen and recalled that the use of strategic stocks of the State was activated punctually.
For the regional prefect, Georges-François Leclerc, the return to normal is “difficult to predict”. “It’s all regarding logistics. Logistics can take a little time.”
