On Tuesday morning, Clément Beaune, Olivier Véran and Bruno Le Maire called for the immediate lifting of refinery and warehouse blockades. If the strike movement continues, members of Elisabeth Borne’s government have put forward the threat of state intervention and, in particular, a requisition of personnel to guarantee the restart of the sites. This is an extreme assumption provided for by law, while the employer of a private company “cannot in any case assume the power to requisition striking workers” according to an appeal dated December 15, 2009.
In the absence of being framed in the labor law, the requisition of employees may be ordered by the executive power in the terms provided in article L2211-1 of the Defense Code. The government can thus open up this possibility through decrees adopted by the Council of Ministers “in the event of a relative threat in particular to a part of the territory, to a sector of national life or to a fraction of the population.”
The departmental prefect can also act
On a more local scale, the administrative authority that holds police power, namely the departmental prefect, can also be seized. Thus, article L2215-1 of the General Code of Local Authorities indicates:
However, the prefect cannot establish a full or normal service and must content himself with a minimum service within the framework of this requisition in order not to infringe the right to strike enshrined in article 7 of the preamble of the 1946 Constitution. The measures adopted must respond to the urgency of the situation and be proportional to the demands of public order. In case of refusal to submit to a requisition order, the worker commits a crime punishable by six months in prison and a fine of 10,000 euros.
Source: BFM TV
