Pensions: Refineries could be requisitioned in case of shutdown, government reminds

The threat of requisitions continues to hover, and protests against pension reform are in their second week of lockdowns in selected sectors. Industry Minister Roland Lescure hinted this Saturday morning that the government could requisition if the refineries were shut down by striking workers.

According to CGT, at least two refineries, PetroIneos in Lavere (Bouches-du-Rhone) and TotalEnergies Normandy’s Gonfreville-l’Orcher (Manche) refinery, could be closed from this weekend and later on Monday. So far, the strikers have been content with blocking fuel supplies, but factories have continued to produce.

Such measures are “rolling out” with Paris garbage collectors

Asked about the risk of fuel shortages, the minister, a guest of France Info, replied: “In the autumn we showed that we know how to take over our duties there again, we will take them”, referring to the applications that were then taken for unblocking. oil facilities during wage strikes. He stressed that such measures are “rolling out” with Parisian garbage collectors.

“We are not going to leave 65 million French men and women and a country blocked together by a few dozen people. So, a strike, (…) is obviously an inalienable right, but blocking individuals of the country (…) is impossible,” the minister added.

Assuring that “today most gas stations in France and Navarre have gasoline”, Roland Lescure criticized the leader of the CGT Bouches-du-Rhône, Olivier Mateu, for calling him, without naming him, an “arsonist firefighter” who ” trying to create panic, anxiety, so that people go for gasoline, and we suddenly find ourselves potentially without it.

The trade unionist, candidate to succeed Philippe Martinez at the head of the CGT, advised on Monday “comrades who get up in the morning to go to work” to “stock up because it won’t last forever” after a strike at the oil terminals of Fos-sur-Mer and Laver.