Pension reform: what next for strikes in refineries?

The unions will not stop there. In a joint statement, the youth movements denounced: “Nothing justifies such an unjust and brutal reform. The government must hear the massive rejection of this project and withdraw it”. Thus, the intersyndicale – which brings together the CFDT, the CFE-CGC, the CFTC, the CGT, FO, FSU, Solidaires, and the UNSA – called for a new massive mobilization against the pension reform desired by the executive on February 7, 2023.

Several sectors should be affected by this movement:

48-hour strike, blockade of refineries… What do we know about the mobilization of TotalEnergies employees?

For the time being, TotalEnergies employees indicate that they are not “ready” to shut down the group’s refineries, according to information from BFMTV. The CGT is calling for a 48-hour strike on Tuesday February 7 and Wednesday February 8, 2023, against the 72 hours initially indicated. Thierry Defresne, CGT secretary of the TotalEnergies Europe committee, said: “What we are going to offer them for 48 hours is ‘nothing goes in, nothing comes out’, as usual”.

While waiting to know if the employees would be ready to stop the refineries, the latter calls for “testing renewable strikes”. “The only impact on the work tool will be a drop in production flow but not a stoppage”, concludes Thierry Defresne.

Should we fear supply tensions in service stations, like last fall?

At the dawn of the first general mobilization against the pension reform, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister of Energy Transition, wanted to be reassuring about possible fuel shortages. “The stocks exist and have been replenished (…) we are not at all in the situation of last fall”, she advanced at the microphone of franceinfo.

Éric Sellini, CGT manager at TotalEnergies, had also warned that stocks were largely able to “absorb” a first 24-hour strike, but that “certain motorway stations could close” in the columns of Midi Libre.