PARIS — French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne has ordered police to make sure staffers at Esso-ExxonMobil sites go back to work, amid strikes that have caused shortages at almost a third of the country’s petrol stations.
“I’ve asked police commissioners to begin, as the law permits, the requisition of personnel essential to this company’s facilities,” Borne told MPs Tuesday.
After days of disruption at oil facilities and long lines at petrol pumps, particularly in the Paris region and in the north of France, unions came to an agreement for a pay rise with Esso-ExxonMobil on Monday, while talks have begun between unions and TotalEnergies.
The strike at Esso-ExxonMobil, however, continued Tuesday, after some hard-left unions rejected the deal. Borne said the government could not accept this, and warned of further action if the discussions at TotalEnergies don’t produce results.
On Monday, 30 percent of petrol stations had run out of at least one type of fuel, with Borne calling the situation resulting from the strike and panic-buying, “difficult, in some places untenable.”
“Salary disagreements don’t justify blocking the country,” she said, echoing President Emmanuel Macron’s comments Monday, when he implored companies and trade unions to find a compromise, while indirectly criticizing strikers by saying, “blockage is not a way to negotiate.”
