There are “no more strikes at the Fos-sur-Mer refinery during this morning’s shift”. Fuel shipments partially resumed on Friday “for 6 hours”, said a spokeswoman for the Esso-ExxonMobil group, but the CGT denounces “manipulation” by management to encourage employees to return to work. The union is already announcing a “hardening” of the movement in the afternoon.
“Our management lied to the morning team by telling them that a refinery close to ours had been shipping via pipeline since the middle of the week”, specifies Lionel Arbiol, CGT manager of the Esso-ExxonMobil site in Fos-sur- Sea. “It’s a shameless lie and manipulation to influence the strike,” he insists. And to warn: “The morning team has therefore let a few shipments pass, but they will be stopped at 1 p.m.”.
Strike extended until Monday at Petroineos refinery
The neighboring refineries of TotalEnergies in La Mède and Petroineos in Lavera, also located on the Etang de Berre, were still blocked on Friday. “Nothing goes in, nothing comes out”, according to Fabien Cros, of the CGT La Mède, which counted “70 to 80% of strikers”. A new general meeting is scheduled for the end of the morning to decide whether or not to continue the movement. At the Petroineos refinery, the blocking has already been voted until Monday morning, specifies Sébastien Varagnol, of the CGT.
In service stations, concerning fuel stocks, the situation showed a slight improvement on Friday morning compared to Thursday, with 3.31% of the approximately 10,000 French stations in lack of petrol and / or diesel compared to March 1. , against 4.8% the day before according to public data analyzed by AFP.
The most affected areas remained departments in western France, with 18.75% of stations affected in Indre-et-Loire, 18.03% in Orne and 16.33% in Indre and 16.07% in Mayenne, according to ski resort information available on the prix-carburants.gouv.fr website.