France requisitions workers as refinery strikes drag on

PARIS — The French government on Wednesday started the process of requisitioning workers at petrol depots of ExxonMobil's French branch Esso in an attempt to ensure that service stations around the country are supplied with badly needed fuel amid an ongoing strike, saying shortages are becoming "unbearable "to too many in the country.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne ordered local authorities on Tuesday to requisition workers needed to ensure petrol supply to service stations across the country.

"A salary disagreement does not justify blocking the country," Borne told the National Assembly. "To refuse to discuss is to make the French victims of an absence of dialogue."

Borne said 30 percent of the country's gas stations have already run out of at least one type of fuel, with the Greater Paris region one of the worst affected.

Over the weekend, TotalEnergies and the General Confederation of Labour, or CGT, agreed to start negotiations, but no agreement was reached. The strikers' actions have led to a decrease in fuel deliveries, provoking fears of fuel shortage and long hours of waiting. School bus transportation was also affected by the strikes.

Agnes Pannier-Runacher, French minister for energy transition, warned on Tuesday of the manipulated prices in several service stations.

"Fuel supply tensions do not justify the soaring prices at several service stations. We will not allow prices to be artificially inflated," she said on her social media account.

Strikers are demanding a raise in salary to compensate for the high inflation that France is experiencing.

Motorists again besieged petrol stations that are either low on fuel or completely dry as the labor protests entered the third week.

On Tuesday evening, TotalEnergies offered to consult unions whose workers were not on strike.

Unions representing overall staff at the company accepted a pay deal on Monday, but the CGT and Force Ouvriere unions at the depots rejected it and voted to extend their stoppage.

Government spokesman Olivier Veran had warned on Tuesday that strikers at TotalEnergies could also be forced back, calling the strike "excessive and out of line".

The company said it is willing to advance annual pay negotiations to this month.

But Eric Sellini, CGT coordinator at the oil major, said: "We are still waiting for details from management on what they want to negotiate on."

The stoppages have hit several key refineries, including France's biggest near Le Havre in the north.

The company runs a network of around 3,500 filling stations in France, nearly a third of the total.

Long queues formed outside petrol stations from dawn on Tuesday, with many people using social media to exchange tips on the best places to go.

The crisis comes at a time of high energy prices and inflation that are sapping French households' purchasing power.

The frustrations could add impetus to a "march against the high cost of living" in Paris and elsewhere on Sunday, called by the left-wing opposition coalition Nupes.

Over the weekend, several prominent French people came out in support of the initiative, including this year's Nobel Prize winner in literature Annie Ernaux.

"With this government, when dialogue stalls, it's threats for the wage earners and caresses for the bosses," tweeted Manuel Bompard, a deputy for the left-wing La France Insoumise party.

Agencies - Xinhua