“We must go to the end”, explains Tuesday, October 11 on franceinfo Xavier Bertrand, president of the Hauts-de-France region. For the founder of the “We France” movement, “Requisitioning striking Esso employees is not enough.” It’s necessary “requisition the striking employees who continue to want to block refineries and fuel depots”.
“If we do not unblock the situation at Total, we will not return to the normal situation before this crisis.”
Xavier-Bertrandfranceinfo
“Today Esso, with the refineries, it is 20% of the use that there is throughout the national territory but as far as we are concerned in Hauts-de-France, the decision to requisition at Esso n ‘will have no effect on improving the situation in the region’, explains Xavier Bertrand, who uses a concrete example: “We have a depot near Dunkirk, it’s a Total depot. Until it’s freed up and the strikers are requisitioned like we did in 2010 nothing will improve and things will continue to deteriorate,” he says.
The regional president wants to end “to this chaotic situation”. Regarding the CGT, which has decided to harden its position and continue the strike movement, Xavier Bertrand responds directly to Philippe Martinez, general secretary of the union: “Let Mr. Martinez go there in front of a gas station to explain to employees who have been struggling for hours to fill up that we must mobilize in support of the strikers. Let him go, I would like see that.” He pursues : “The truth is that there is not a word for those who work, not a word for home helpers, for transporters, for liberal nurses. At some point you have to understand that there is a general interest.”
“But there is a principle and limits, it is the continuity of public services”. According to Xavier Bertrand “the strike has been going on for too long” and “starts our country in its normal functioning.” In Hauts-de-France, the elected official judges that the situation “is not difficult, it is more than difficult” because today “a large part of the service stations can no longer deliver anything”.
The regional president is worried: “We are far from returning to normal”. Regarding the release of strategic stocks “that I asked for last week”he says, she “has allowed us to avoid running out of fuel in all the stations in the country, that’s all.” The former presidential candidate therefore wishes to obtain more: “We are not going to be satisfied with having 50% of the fuel available in the country, it is not possible”.