The French government is to order workers back to their jobs at a major fuel refinery, as petrol shortages continue amid a long-running nationwide strike for better salaries and a share of oil firm’s huge profits.
The government confirmed that the requisition of essential fuel workers at the blockaded Port Jérôme refinery at Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon, in Normandy, would begin on Wednesday. But the controversial move could risk stoppages spreading to other sectors in support of the fuel strikers.
The government is facing a deepening crisis after weeks of stoppages led by the leftwing CGT trade union, which is seeking large pay rises for workers at two oil firms, the French TotalEnergies and the US ExxonMobil. Strikers want better pay amid the cost-of-living crisis and a share of companies’ high profits.
The strikes have paralysed six of France’s seven fuel refineries, leading to nation-wide shortages exacerbated by panic-buying from motorists.
At TotalEnergies, the CGT trade union is seeking an immediate 10% pay rise after a surge in energy prices led to huge profits that allowed the company to pay an estimated €8bn in dividends and an additional special dividend to investors. Like other big oil companies, TotalEnergies’ profits have soared as energy prices increased during the war in Ukraine.
ExxonMobil has held pay talks with staff from two big trade unions, but the CGT refinery workers do not agree.
Strikes continued on Wednesday at two refineries owned by ExxonMobil and four TotalEnergies sites.
The government process to requisition workers at the Esso-ExxonMobil Normandy refinery of Port Jérôme would depend on a special decree being signed by the local prefect’s office.
The state has the power to requisition refineries and order workers back to their jobs in an emergency, with the risk of fines or jail for those who refuse. It could entail police and gendarmes serving notices to workers at their homes. The state would have to prove that there was an emergency to do so.
The rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy took a such a step against striking fuel workers in 2010.
The CGT said it would challenge the requisition notifications in court once it had received them.
On the picket lines, the threat of government intervention to requisition workers only deepened strikers’ resolve. At the Port Jérôme refinery on Wednesday morning, 50 striking workers standing by burning palettes of wood voted unanimously to continue their stoppage.
“You’re all being targeted, the government wants to force us to come to work, we’re going to fight against that, it’s clearly an infringement of the right to strike. We’re being directly attacked on our right to strike,” said Christophe Aubert, CGT delegate at ExxonMobil, reported by the AFP news agency.
Aubert said the CGT had reached its 23rd day of strike action at the refinery which was “historic”.
The crisis comes at a time of high energy prices and inflation, while TotalEnergies’ bumper profits have caused widespread anger and demands that it face a windfall tax. Those calls have been refused by the government.
The president, Emmanuel Macron, is keen to avoid strikes spreading to other sectors, with some nuclear plant workers on Wednesday saying they could join the action.
The Green MP Sandrine Rousseau told France Info radio: “I hope this is the spark that begins a general strike.”
TotalEnergies was to hold a meeting on Wednesday with all trade unions, including the CGT, to discuss the blockades.
The French oil firm has proposed bringing forward annual wage negotiations to begin this month, provided the stoppages restricting output at some of its sites ended. But the CGT has voted to continue to strike.
