Will the strike movement in the refineries spread to other professional sectors? A national demonstration of railway workers, scheduled for Tuesday, October 18 in Paris at the call of the CGT, “will become a national interprofessional strike for wages and against requisitions”, learned France Télévisions from the union, Wednesday, October 12. The CGT of Bouches-du-Rhône had threatened to call for “general mobilization” in all sectors on the first requisition on one of the country’s oil sites.
The secretary general of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, came “sustain” Wednesday the employees of ExxonMobil in Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon (Seine-Maritime), announced the filing, Thursday, of a summary appeal against the requisitions of four of them. As announced by the Prime Minister on Tuesdaythese ExxonMobil employees have been requisitioned to allow the operation of the Norman depot, two for Wednesday, and two for Thursday morning, announced the Ministry of Energy Transition.
The executive differentiates between the situation at ExxonMobil, where “there is no longer any reason” blockage after the agreement between management and unions on Monday, and at TotalEnergies, where no negotiations had yet started before Wednesday. For the first time, management agreed to receive the union that very day.
La CGT, which launched the strike on September 27 at TotalEnergies, is demanding a 10% increase for 2022, against the 3.5% obtained at the start of the year, in order to offset inflation and take advantage of the group’s exceptional profits .
Six of the eight refineries in France are on strike. At 5 p.m. on Wednesday, 30.8% of service stations were in difficulty at the national level, a majority in Hauts-de-France and Ile-de-France. Emmanuel Macron assured France 2 that he planned “a return to normal in the coming week”, appellant “to responsibility” the management of TotalEnergies and the CGT.
Faced with exasperated motorists, the government is increasingly criticized by the opposition. Green MP Sandrine Rousseau called on Wednesday to “the general strike”when Mathilde Panot (LFI) went among the ExxonMobil strikers in Gravenchon.