France: in oil refineries, requisitions do not pass
The leader of the CGT union Philippe Martinez, alongside strikers at the Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon refinery, in the north of France, this Wednesday, October 12, 2022. AFP - LOU BENOIST
Text by: RFI Follow
7 mins
Long queues.
Nervous motorists.
The gasoline shortage continues and worsens in France.
The strike is renewed in six refineries of the country.
The CGT, at the origin of the movement, is joined by FO, at TotalEnergies.
At ExxonMobil, where an agreement had been signed by other representative unions, the strike was also renewed on Wednesday 12 October.
Two employees were requisitioned and two others were to be Thursday morning.
The process goes badly with the unions.
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At the Esso-ExxonMobil fuel depot in the town of Port-Jérôme, in the Seine-Maritime department, in Normandy, the government is requisitioning employees to go to work.
The prefecture launched a first requisition of four striking employees to release stocks of fuel produced by the Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon refinery, and to supply dry service stations in the Ile-de-France region.
These decrees were notified by the director of the site to four employees: two for Wednesday, and two for Thursday, according to the Ministry of Energy Transition.
On paper, the few strikers essential to unblocking the fuel from the tanks are thus forced to come to work under penalty of criminal sanctions.
►Read again: Fuel shortage in France: a first requisition in the face of the strike
The strike continues
In the meantime, still no tanker truck was in sight on Wednesday.
Here, reports our special correspondent on the spot,
Pierre Olivier
, the strike was renewed for the 23rd consecutive day at the beginning of the afternoon this Wednesday.
Trade unionists gather at the Gravenchon-Port-Jérôme refinery, owned by the American giant Esso-ExxonMobil, on October 12, 2022 in Port-Jérôme, Normandy.
AFP - LOU BENOIST
They were about fifty ExxonMobil employees to take part in the vote by show of hands, in the open air, next to the white tents of the General Confederation of Labor, the CGT, installed at the entrance to the site.
The reaction on the spot, faced with the requisitions, of Christophe Aubert, CGT coordinator of ExxonMobil.
Normally, it is the gendarmerie who will deliver the requisition letters to the employees who are at home.
Or, they may be delivered on site, if the employees are present.
For all of us, it's unbearable to see this image, of gendarmes knocking on your door to get you into a van and take you to your place of work.
All this for a story of rights and freedoms in France, which is flouted by Elisabeth Borne who, today, asked for the requisition of employees who can no longer use their right to strike.
Report at the ExxonMobil depot in Port-Jérôme-sur-Seine
Pierre Olivier
Referred this Thursday
The unions have already indicated that they will challenge the requisitions by way of summary, and this, from Thursday morning.
The French oil group TotalEnergies, which received the unions one by one this Wednesday afternoon, started with the CGT, the majority in the refineries and which is at the origin of this strike.
The General Confederation of Labor has again requested the opening of negotiations on wages.
Thierry Defresne, CGT Total Refining central trade union representative, at the end of this first meeting.
We are not calling for the strike to be lifted, because we know very well that the striking employees told us, when Total initially asked for the strike to be lifted, period (. ..) that they didn't want to lift their motion until there was a proposal on the table.
And for the moment, the indicators show us that management is not inclined to make proposals that would be likely to lift this movement.
Let me explain...
Thierry Defresne, CGT Total Refining central trade union representative
Alexis Bedu
Martinez is here
The strike movement is therefore renewed in six of the country's eight refineries.
The requisitions are an attack on the right to strike, in the eyes of the general secretary of the CGT, who also went, in person, to the Port-Jérôme refinery at the start of the evening this Wednesday.
The secretary general of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, with strikers at the Port-Jérôme refinery, in the north of France, this Wednesday, October 12, 2022. AFP - LOU BENOIST
Jérôme Martinez, number one of the CGT union, at the microphone of RFI this Wednesday evening:
It is absolutely outrageous.
Mr. Sarkozy had done the same thing in 2010, and the French State had been condemned by the International Labor Organization, which is an organization as you know that reports directly to the UN.
This condemnation specified that France questioned the right to strike.
What was valid in 2010 is still valid today.
And so, of course, it's an outrageous decision.
And I can announce to you that we will go to interim measures to support all the employees who are requisitioned, on the basis of international law.
Philippe Martinez, general secretary of the CGT
Pierre Olivier
The strike is a right
For the government, it cannot be otherwise, however: we must act.
Even if for the majority union in the refineries, the requisition is clearly an attack on the right to strike.
A right, but also and above all the only means of wresting from the TotalEnergies group concessions worthy of the record profits made with the energy crisis.
This is what Alexis Antonioli, general secretary of the CGT union of the Total Normandy Platform, also recalled last Thursday.
Shortages are the consequences of our action.
We, our action, the goal is not to organize scarcity;
us, our goal is to hit as hard as possible on the wallet of our boss, who today remains silent.
The shortage, finally, for us, it is the management of Total who bears the responsibility, because we have set the framework in which, well, finally, we were ready to return to work.
But the real question is how far management is willing to go.
Alexis Antonioli, CGT general secretary of the Total Normandy platform
Alexis Bedu
Internal games at the CGT
In the background: the context at the CGT.
The analysis of Bernard Vivier, director of the Higher Labor Institute.
This conflict carries a lot of meaning.
First internally, within the CGT, because the CGT chemistry federation is preparing, like the other federations, the major confederal congress of the CGT, which will take place next March, during which Philippe Martinez will give his office of secretary general.
We will have to choose a new secretary general.
And today, the federations are not well in line with each other.
There are internal power games, of course.
Bernard Vivier, director of the Higher Labor Institute
Aabla Jounaidi
The CFDT intervenes
Reaction, again this Wednesday evening, of the general secretary of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT) union, Laurent Berger, after the government's decision to requisition striking employees from ExxonMobil.
"
I want to exercise the right to strike, so requisitions are obviously not a solution
," he said to Agence France-Presse.
"
Afterwards, I am not responsible for supplying the French with fuel, so my position is a little easier than others
", adds the union leader, recalling that the social movement at ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies is "
very handicapping for number of citizens
.
There, there is a tension, I do not want the escalation (...) I hope that there will be opening of negotiations as we have been asking for last week.
Last weekend, Mr. Berger had drawn the wrath of trade unionists by criticizing a “
preventive
” strike at TotalEnergies.
"
We think that from the start we should have favored social dialogue and we continue to think that
," he told AFP on Wednesday.
My press review of the French newspapers on @RFI:
fuels… the tension goes up a notchhttps://t.co/UlmS4YAPTJ via @RFIAfrique #carburants #grevetotal #TotalEnergies #Esso
— Frédéric Couteau (@FredericCouteau) October 12, 2022
►Also listen: Fuel shortage in France: "Requisitioning is undermining the right to strike"
President Macron's reaction
Emmanuel Macron assured that the situation would "
return to normal
" in the distribution of fuels "
in the course of the coming week
".
The French president spoke in a long interview on the France 2 channel on Wednesday evening.
The Head of State again called
for “responsibility
” from the management of TotalEnergies and the CGT, hoping that the union behind the strike would “
allow the country to function
”.
He calls for “
social dialogue
” between management and unions.
This dialogue "
must live
", insists Emmanuel Macron.
“
But I say it very clearly: if the social dialogue does not succeed in the next few hours, we will requisition.
And to recall that this crisis has "
nothing to do with the war
" in progress in Ukraine.
These are two companies, Exxon and Total, "
which have made significant profits because the context is good for these companies, which have distributed a lot to their shareholders and which have social negotiations in progress
", he developed.
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