Paris
CNN Business
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French President Emmanuel Macron called a crisis meeting with senior ministers on Monday to resolve paralysis strike at the refineries made the fuel pumps exhausted.
Macron on Monday announced his desire for a solution “as quickly as possible” to the protests, promising to “do my best” to find a solution, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
According to French Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher, the government has ordered strikers at two fuel depots in Feyzin, near Lyon, to return to work within a few hours on Monday or face a fire. criminal charges.
Lyon is one of the worst-affected areas of the country, with nearly 40% of gas stations running out of at least one fuel on Sunday. In other places, almost a third of gas stations According to French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, at least one fuel has run out, with the situation expected to worsen this week.
This is the second time in recent weeks that the French government has taken the unusual step of requisitioning essential staff in the face of weeks-long strikes at refineries owned by ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies, which have disrupted supplies. supply to thousands of gas stations.
While ExxonMobil workers agreed to end the blockade of the Fos-sur-Mer refinery in southern France last weekend following salary negotiations, strikes continued at refineries. TotalEnergies oil.
One of France’s largest unions, CGT, refused to accept the terms of a wage agreement agreed between TotalEnergies and two other unions, CFE-CGC and CFDT. The deal includes a 7% salary increase in 2023 and bonuses for all employees equivalent to one month’s salary. CGT asked for a 10% raise.
But French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the strikes were “unacceptable and illegal”, as wage agreements had been met with the majority of workers. “The time for negotiations has passed,” he added.
In an interview with France Inter, a radio station, the CGT representative, Philippe Martinez, stated that “several thousand” workers are still on strike, contradicting government ministers, who have called the public strike workers were “a handful of workers” and “a few hundred” in the interviews.
Transport Minister Clement Beaune told France Inter that the only way out of the crisis was to end the strikes.
Meanwhile, commuters could face days of chaos in commuting if strikes are planned in the Paris public transport network and parts of the national rail network. conducted. Beaune said that in the worst-affected areas, only one in two trains will run on Tuesday.
This industrial activity comes amid rising costs of living in France, where soaring electricity bills due to cuts in Russian natural gas supplies have triggered an energy crisis in the country. Europe. On Sunday, thousands of people marched through central Paris to protest the crisis and “climate inactivity”.
