Given this situation, the government has “issued a requisition order“. littlewolf1989 / stock.adobe.com
While fuel shortages are becoming widespread in France, especially in its southern half, the capital is in turn experiencing this phenomenon.
Are Paris airports in danger of running out of kerosene? The situation is “critical“, according to the government, which says it is ready to requisition strikers to resume fuel shipments from the Normandy refinery, the largest in France. The supply of kerosene to Ile-de-France and its airports via Normandybecomes critical“, indicated Thursday the Ministry of Energy Transition which has “issued a requisition order“with regard to the strikers, which was not notified”at this stageto employees of the refinery, which was shut down last weekend.
The General Directorate of Civil Aviation has been warning airlines for several days that the reserves of kerosene at the airports of Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle and Paris-Orly are “under pressureprompting them to take their precautions. These tensions are added to the growing shortage of gasoline and diesel in the country’s service stations: according to AFP, 15% of French stations lacked one or the other of these fuels on Thursday, a rate which rises to more than 40% in Loire-Atlantique and in several departments of Brittany.
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Renewed requisitions
“When everyone tries to fill their tank to 100%, the system is not able to respond“Explained the CEO of Esso France, Charles Amyot, Thursday during a press conference presenting the financial results. According to him, the problem is primarily logistical, on the supply side of crude oil refineries, some ports being blocked, and on the side of gasoline deliveries to stations. Ditto for kerosene, he said, for which it is “not a stock problem“. “The government is monitoring the situation hour by hour and department by department with professionals and prefects. We intervene in a targeted manner to unblock deposits that are obstructed by demonstrators. As soon as requisitions cannot be avoided, we will take our responsibilities“said Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
The government requisitioned for the first time three employees of the Esso refinery in Fos-sur-Mer on Tuesday, and it renewed these requisitions for 48 hours, to relieve the stations in the south of the country. For the TotalEnergies site in Gonfreville-L’Orcher, the prefecture did not send police to the employees to deliver the requisition letters but it dispatched a bailiff on Wednesday evening, according to Alexis Antonioli, CGT general secretary of the refinery. Thursday morning, twenty employees were still gathered with trade unionists, refusing to enter the refinery.
Thursday afternoon, the refinery strikers renewed “denial of relief“, and therefore decided not to take over from their colleagues in post for more than 24 hours, thus avoiding being given the letters of requisition which would force them to return to work, Alexis Antonioli told AFP. Concerning the teams in post, the prefect cannot requisition them, because they can no longer carry out expeditions beyond 12 working hours, for security reasons.
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Symbol
The TotalEnergies refinery in Normandy is on the same pipelines as the CIM (Compagnie industrielle maritime) in Le Havre and the neighboring Esso-ExxonMobil refinery in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon, which supply the Paris airports. Fuel shipments from the Esso refinery are also blocked, according to the CGT. For Alexis Antonioli, beyond the relatively modest quantities of kerosene, the State wishes to tackle a “symbol», that of the first refinery to have ceased production, and thus «break the strike movement“.
TotalEnergies only has one in four refineries still in operation, at Feyzin near Lyon – from where strikers continue to block shipments. Two others (Donges, in Loire-Atlantique, and the La Mède biorefinery, in Bouches-du-Rhône) were stopped for reasons other than the strike. The only French refinery of the Petroineos company in Lavéra (Bouches-du-Rhône) also stopped because of the strike. The two Esso-ExxonMobil refineries, in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon and Fos-sur-Mer are still running, but fuel shipments remain blocked, according to the CGT.