While waiting for diesel… The government signed, on Wednesday, the first requisitions for personnel in the refineries and oil depots of TotalEnergies and Esso-ExxonMobil. A last-ditch measure to try to stem the shortage of gasoline that is affecting more and more service stations on French territory. Except that these requisitions, even if they were applied immediately in the field, will not have an instant effect. So, while waiting for the arrival of a providential cistern, the gas station attendants are bored. Report in several stations in Lille, in the North.
The tripartite showdown hardens on Thursday between the unions, the oil groups and the government. With renewed strikes, broken negotiations and requisitions. Implicated in spite of themselves in this war of nerves and gasoline, the employees of the service stations suffer, absorbing the ire of exasperated motorists, or the boredom of days as long as a day without bread. “I haven’t had a drop of petrol for 18 days and despite everything, Total wants me to stay open. I can just close at 7 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. ”, cowardly, annoyed, the employee of a station on rue de Turenne, in Lille.
“I decided to answer all phone calls”
In another station of the same brand, in Moulins, a popular district of Lille, the shop is open beyond the empty pumps, surrounded by rubalises. “I was told that a truck might pass today. I haven’t had a time, it’s not even sure that he’s coming. We just have to wait”, resigned the young employee before plunging back into his laptop. Boulevard Robert Schuman, a third TotalEnergies station is also empty. “Saturday’s delivery left in one day. There, I expect nothing, ”says the manager. He could close, but he refuses to do so so as not to penalize his employees: “We take care of ourselves as best we can. The other day, I decided to answer all the phone calls, I had 123 of them in seven hours, always to ask if we had gasoline, ”he explains.
In the rare places where there is still petrol, outside the Total network, customers wait in peace. “Before the shortage, people complained if they had to wait a few minutes. Today, they can queue for an hour without saying anything, they are so happy to find an open pump,” says the manager of the Schuman station. “I saw a few fights, motorists insulting each other. But that was at the start of the Total discount, ”assures an employee of a Lille pump. “We were delivered yesterday and the police came to put some order in the traffic. They left 2 hours later because everything was going well”, we are told in a station in La Madeleine, near Lille.
In the absence of customers to serve, apart from a few regulars who come for a wash, the employees tinker, read, scroll on their laptops or do some cleaning. In addition to the morale of the troops, the lack of activity also weighs on the turnover of the stations. “I didn’t even make a hundred euros in a week’s cash,” says the employee of a Lille station. “Even before the strikes, we were making fewer sales because deliveries were not following. Since the start of the discount in September, my turnover has plunged to 27%”, explains to 20 minutes a TotalEnergies station manager.