Suspension of the strike in Donges (Loire-Atlantique) and end of the blockade in La Mède (Bouches-du-Rhône): the protest movement against the pension reform in refineries marked the time on Friday, on the eve of the end of long week. Easter weekend. The day after the eleventh national day of action against the pension reform project, only the Total de Gonfreville-L’Orcher (Seine-Maritime) refinery, the largest in France, remained completely blocked. A decree of the prefecture that proceeded to the requisition of strikers at the Norman site was suspended on Thursday in a summary procedure by the administrative court of Rouen. The latter considered that it violated the right to strike and did not demonstrate that these requisitions were necessary “for the needs of public services.”
Gonfreville employees decided on Friday in a general assembly to renew the strike until Tuesday morning and “by then no product will enter or leave,” said David Guillemard, CGT delegate for the site. The unionist does not fear other searches at this stage “since we are the only ones on strike” and that would be difficult to justify in this context, according to him.
“We are going to be Emmanuel Macron’s nightmare”
On Friday, after a month of closely watched movement, unions at the TotalEnergies Donges refinery have effectively decided to call off their strike until April 13. “It is the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. We have taken note of the stubbornness of the president and have come to the conclusion that this movement will last in the long term,” said Fabien Privé Saint-Lanne, union representative of the CGT ( majority), at the end of a general meeting.
On the side of the Esso refinery in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon, near Le Havre, employees decided on Thursday to return to work after a 19-day strike, “out of weariness with the lack of listening to the government that does not care about the shortage of ‘gasoline’, said Germinal Lancelin, general secretary of the CGT.
Lifting of blockades in the South
The blockades of the La Mède biorefinery near Marseille and the oil terminals of the Grand Maritime Port of Marseille-Fos were also lifted on Friday. And here again, the unions are showing their determination to take action “one way or another,” explained Fabien Cros, a CGT delegate and spokesman for the La Mède site, who criticizes “a hard-line and radical government.”
According to the trade unionist, 73 ships were still waiting in the bay of Fos-sur-Mer to be able to unload crude oil, refined products (diesel, gasoline) or chemical products. Lionel Arbiol, of the Fos-sur-Mer CGT Esso, said for his part that even if the renewables strike ended on Wednesday, crude supply problems remained. Fuel is coming out, but very marginally and shipments are still disrupted, he says.
Installations taking a long time to restart
At the height of the mobilization, and before the first government-ordered requisitions, no fuel was flowing from any of France’s six conventional refineries to service stations across the country. Fuel shipments from refinery reserves have gradually resumed, helping to reduce shortages to around 5% of stations across the country. Notable exception: the Paris region, where 20-40% of stations run out of some form of fuel on Fridays, often unleaded.
Despite removing the blockages, it will often take time to restart facilities and production. The Donges refinery, which has been closed for several weeks for technical reasons unrelated to the strike, takes, for example, about eight days to get back into operation.
Source: BFM TV
