Started at the end of September, the strikes in the refineries are still continuing, leading to a shortage in the service stations. Thursday, October 13, the Ministry of Ecological Transition thus indicated that four out of seven refineries were encountering fuel supply problems across the national territory.
Faced with this situation, the government launched, from Tuesday, October 11, the requisition of fuel depot personnel from the Esso-Exxonmobile group on the Port-Jérôme site and the TotalEnergies depot in Flanders on Thursday. This action should make it possible to supply the pumps in Ile-de-France and Hauts-de-France, regions particularly affected by the shortage.
However, this decision by the government is not viewed favorably by the unions, which denounce an infringement of the right to strike. Thus, the strikes were renewed Thursday, October 13 in all the Total sites involved in the movement, as indicated by Thierry Defresnue, CGT secretary of the TotalEnergies Europe committee. “The movement is renewed everywhere, with still very high rates of strikers,” he said, as reported by the Huffington Post.
Thus, the social conflict seems to be bogged down and the requisition initiated by the government has led to a reaction from the unions in many sectors of the economy. They called for an interprofessional general strike movement throughout France.
Thus, from transport to energy, many sectors will be affected.
Tuesday, October 18, two SNCF unions called for a strike. They are demanding a salary increase and also wish to protest against the requisitions launched by the government in the fuel sector. The secretary general of the CGT-railway workers told Le Point that they would not forbid themselves “any scenario”.
Same story on the side of the RATP where the CGT invited to mobilize for wage increases, against the pension reform and to “defend the right to strike”, as indicated by the general secretary of the union to Franceinfo.
But beyond public transport, the entire economy will be impacted as road hauliers have also joined the movement, calling for “swelling the pickets”, as the transport federation has said. of the CGT.
But these sectors are not the only ones to be affected.
With the energy crisis threatening the country for several weeks now, the National Federation of Mines and Energy called for “broadening the strike in all energy companies” in a statement posted on Twitter Thursday, October 13, as noticed it BFMTV.
In the nuclear sector, 9 reactors out of the 18 in the French fleet should be slowed down by the strike.
The FO unions as well as the CGT also called for a strike in the steel industry next Tuesday following the announcement of “changes in the operation of the lines for November and December” by the management of ArcelorMittal.
Philippe Martinez, the leader of the CGT, called, on the set of BFMTV, to “amplify these strike movements”, in “all companies, in the public as in the private sector”.
Thus, it is also within the public service that the protest will be felt since the unions have called for support for the actions carried out in the refineries and for the defense of the right to strike.
On Tuesday, October 18, many sectors are therefore at risk of being paralyzed by this general and interprofessional strike movement. The strikers have until Monday evening to declare themselves, so it will be necessary to wait for this schedule in order to know precisely which services will not be available on Tuesday.
Some sectors have already made their intentions known, beyond transport and energy.
Thus, crèches and kindergartens could be affected, given the fact that they had followed the back-to-school protest movement and are still demanding higher wages.
The freight transport sector and more specifically the transporters of hazardous materials have also declared themselves in solidarity with the fight.
Garbage collectors in large cities such as Paris, Aix, Marseille, Bordeaux, Rouen and Toulouse should massively follow the strike.
Finally, agrifood workers could also join the movement, given that 50,000 of them have already gone on strike at the end of September, according to Le Point.