The social mobilizations against the pension reform are following their course, intensifying since the invocation of 49.3 by the Prime Minister and the failure of the motion of censure tabled by the deputies of Liot against the government. In refineries, strikes continue and the effects are beginning to be felt at gas pumps. However, on the night of Monday March 20 to Tuesday March 21, the police intervened in the Loire-Atlantique department, unblocking the Donges oil terminal.
The terminal in question had been shut down for almost a week by the strikers, as reported by our colleagues from Le Monde. The executive response to union actions takes a variety of forms. Indeed, the Ministry of Energy Transition declared this morning of Tuesday, March 21 the requisition of striking employees in certain oil depots. At present, 7% of service stations in France are in difficulty. According to the CGT coordinator at TotalEnergies, it is the stations in large cities that will be the most affected, giving full weight to the initially negligible figure of 7%.
The impact of strikes in refineries remains relatively territorial. Indeed, the most affected territories are located in the South-East of France, where we can already see long queues in front of the pumps. The phenomenon is also amplified by motorists fearing shortages, and therefore going to supply stations preventively.
According to the president of the French Union of Petroleum Industries, the shortages are only due to this wave of paranoia, while the unions claim that not a drop of fuel came out of French refineries throughout France. Find below the list of departments in which service stations are currently spared from shortages, according to Le Parisien.
