Paris (EFE).- The French government has decided to intervene on Tuesday, forcing some strikers to work and unblocking strategic oil centers in the face of the more than visible supply problems at gas stations due to protests against its pension reform.
In the absence of a national figure from the Executive, Le Figaro calculates that 9.5% of the country’s gas stations have run out of gasoline or diesel, but the percentage is highly variable depending on the region.
The Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, acknowledged this morning in an interview with the France Inter radio station that in Bouches du Rhone, the department with its capital in Marseille, half of the service stations have run out of fuel.
Hence, the Ministry of Energy Transition has announced that for 48 hours it is going to force some employees of the Fos-sur-Mer deposit in that department to return to work.
Specifically, for fuel to come out of these facilities that supply the Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur region, the east of Occitania and Lyon through an oil pipeline, three employees will have to work in each eight-hour shift.
The government spokesman, Olivier Véran, has pointed out on RTL radio that similar measures may be taken if there are other supply problems: “When it is verified that the blockades hinder the mobility of the French, the blockades will be lifted.”
In fact, last morning the security forces intervened to clear access to the Donges oil terminal, in the Saint Nazaire port complex near Nantes (west), which had been occupied by a picket of strikers for a week .
The country’s refineries stop
According to the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), since Monday not a drop of fuel has come out of the country’s seven refineries, which are either stopped or in the process of stopping.
This situation, if prolonged, will have an effect on the supply of gas stations, which for now receive fuel from other deposits distributed throughout the country.
In addition to limiting the sale of fuel to 30 liters per motorist in some departments, the Ministry of Energy Transition has insisted on the anticipatory measures that it has taken since the beginning of the mobilizations two weeks ago, such as the release of strategic reserves .
The blockades of the ports due to strike pickets are also advanced as one of the causes of the fact that gas reserves in France have sunk and are below the 30% threshold, when in the whole of the European Union the current level exceeds 55%.
In the energy sector, stoppages are also being felt at nine nuclear power plants, even though they have not been stopped, and are translated into voltage reductions that up to now have not caused supply problems.
In transport, both today and tomorrow, 20% of the flights have had to be canceled at the Parisian airport of Orly and at that of Marseille due to the strike of air traffic controllers.
And Beaune has already recognized that the situation will be worse on Thursday, when all the unions have called the ninth day of national mobilization, with demonstrations and new strikes to try to force the Government to renounce its pension reform, although it is already formally adopted.
