Filling stations across France were low on petrol on Monday as a strike by workers at energy giant TotalEnergies entered its third week despite government pressure to negotiate. According to official estimates, around 30 percent of service stations were out of all or at least some fuel types, causing long queues for increasingly desperate motorists.
There had been hopes that the pay-related strike action at TotalEnergies, among the world’s biggest energy multinationals, would end rapidly after management on Sunday agreed to bring forward salary talks in return for workers resuming service.
But the hard-left CGT union declined the offer, accusing management of “blackmail”. The union is demanding a wage rise of 10 percent for 2022, pointing to TotalEnergies’ exceptionally high first-quarter profit of $10.6 billion.
The boss of TotalEnergies’ European refineries, Jean-Marc Durand, countered that “it’s the French people who are being blackmailed”.
Stoppages continued at several refineries Monday, including France’s biggest near Le Havre in the north of the country, with the CGT renewing its strike call until Tuesday and extending strike action to more than a dozen service stations along French motorways. Workers at the French branch of Esso-ExxonMobil were also still on strike, blocking two refineries.
Members of the French government, including Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, have called for both sides to find a negotiated settlement quickly, and on Monday President Emmanuel Macron weighed in. Blockades are no way to negotiate”, Macron said, calling for “an early conclusion of negotiations”.
Source: eNCA
In other news – 8 years later; Senzo Meyiwa’s wife Mandisa finishes building his house
The late Bafana Bafana goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa must be smiling from his grave. When he died in 2014, Meyiwa was in the process of building a home for his children.
The face-brick house is located in the south of Durban, unfortunately, the soccer star could not live to see the finished house. Learn more
