France’s Green candidate in the upcoming presidential election, Yannick Jadot, has accused TotalEnergies of “complicity in war crimes” in Ukraine, a day after the French energy giant said it would stop buying oil from Moscow by the end of the year but continue its purchases of Russian gas.
The Paris-based oil and gas giant has come under intense pressure over its continued presence in Russia, with most of its Western rivals having rushed to end their Russian ventures just days after the Kremlin sent its tanks into Ukraine.
Bowing to pressure, TotalEnergies announced on Tuesday it would stop buying Russia's oil and petroleum products by the end of the year. However, it stopped short of a full exit, saying it would hold on to its minority stakes in two major liquefied natural gas plants as it saw no way of finding non-Russian buyers for the holdings.
The move also fell short of pacifying the company’s critics, who have accused the energy giant of helping to finance Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. They include the Greens’ presidential candidate Yannick Jadot, who engaged in a slanging match with the CEO of TotalEnergies on Wednesday, with just over two weeks to go before the presidential election’s first round on April 10.
CEO vs presidential hopeful
“TotalEnergies, supported by [President Emmanuel] Macron, makes a few concessions but holds on to its core activities in Russia, in full knowledge of the war crimes they help to finance,” the Green candidate wrote in a tweet on Wednesday. “Yes, that’s being complicit!”
Yannick Jadot, a long shot for the presidency who is polling at around 5%, levelled a similar accusation in an earlier tweet on Monday, in which he reposted a video of climate activists smearing TotalEnergies’ Paris headquarters with black paint in protest at its Russian operations.
The Green nominee ended his second salvo on Wednesday with an offer to debate the matter with the company’s CEO Patrick Pouyanné, who took a dig at Jadot in an interview with RTL radio earlier in the day.
“When Mr Jadot levels accusations at Total’s 100,000 employees, it’s extremely serious, it’s an insult (...) and it’s unacceptable,” Pouyanné said. “Mr Jadot spends his time slandering my company. All I can see is that it causes him to drop further in the polls; he’d be better off looking after his campaign instead of insulting us.”
TotalEnergies later said it would press charges against the Green candidate for “defamation”, describing his allegations as “extremely serious and unfounded”. It defended its purchases of Russian gas in a statement sent to French media, saying they were “for the benefit of European consumers”.
Total is not alone among French companies coming under fire for their Russia ties, with carmaker Renault, home-improvement retailer Leroy Merlin and the Auchan supermarket giant all facing criticism.
‘Without Russian gas, you stop part of the European economy’
France’s largest company by annual revenue, TotalEnergies is more entrenched in Russia and exposed to the country’s gas sector than many of its rivals. It has warned of the risks and costs, both for itself and for Europe, of making a hasty exit from Russia.
In his interview with RTL, Pouyanné said ending the company’s natural gas purchases from Russia would effectively hand over billions of euros to Russian investors. If other companies followed suit, he added, it would force a partial economic shutdown in Europe.
Unless European governments impose sanctions on Russian gas, which would allow companies to declare force majeure to break contracts, pulling out of existing deals would require TotalEnergies to pay billions in penalties to its Russian partners, Pouyanné argued, warning that European economies would also pay a heavy price.
"Without Russian gas, you stop part of the European economy (...). If we stop Russian gas we know that in winter 2023 we have a problem, in January we'll have to ration gas use, not for households but probably for industry," he said. "I know how to replace oil and diesel fuel (...) but with gas, I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to replace it, there isn't any other option available, and I have 25-year contracts that I can't get out of."
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
