Pensions: the situation at the service station remains tense

Blockades and pickets at oil refineries continue, and gas stations run out of fuel. According to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, 15% of the 11,000 French stations are in a situation of shortage of at least one type of fuel, and about 8% are completely out of stock.

Some regions, such as Paca, Brittany or the Pays de la Loire, have suffered more, with two-thirds of their stations sometimes experiencing shortages. In Bouches-du-Rhone, a third of the stations have been affected, while one in two is experiencing difficulties in Ile-et-Villeine and Morbihan. In certain areas, such as Var and Garda, sales restrictions have been introduced. In Paris and its suburbs this Saturday, March 25, there were neither crowded queues, nor chaos at gas stations, when motorists went in a panic to fill their tanks.

It will take ten days before everything returns to normal.

These supply difficulties are attributed to strikes at six oil refineries in France against pension reform. Fuel supplies are blocked. In response, the state on Friday requisitioned four employees from TotalÉnergies’ Gonfreville (Seine-Maritime) plant to supply the Île-de-France and, in particular, airports where kerosene supplies were becoming critical.

The situation is the same in Fos-sur-Mer, Lavere (Bouches-du-Rhone) or in Donge (Loire-Atlantique), where production was also stopped due to a technical problem not related to the conflict. On the other hand, in Gravenchon-Port-Jerome, installations were stopped this Friday due to the lack of crude oil supplies after the Le Havre oil depot was blocked. It will take at least ten days before things return to normal at the facility, which represents 20% of French processing capacity.

Despite everything, tank trucks continue to carry fuel to filling stations from 200 warehouses scattered across the territory. Five to ten sites are currently blocked, for example in Le Havre or Frontignan in Hérault. The police lift the blockages in case of an increase in the shortage in the sector. This happened on the site of Port la Nouvelle in Aude, which CRS vacated on Friday morning to allow truck traffic to resume.