France’s government on Tuesday stepped up efforts to break blockades and strikes at refineries that threaten to paralyse the country just three weeks ahead of the Euro 2016 football tournament.
Three months of strikes over controversial labour reforms have led to an increasingly intractable tug of war between the government and the CGT, France’s biggest union.
The CGT’s leader Philippe Martinez vowed on Tuesday to continue the disruption until the Socialist government withdraws the legislation.
Police used tear gas and water cannon to clear a blockade erected by union activists at the key Fos-sur-Mer refinery near the southern city of Marseille.
At least six out of the eight refineries in France have either stopped operating or have reduced output due to strikes and blockades.
Transport looks set to be badly affected in the coming days and weeks as the wave of strikes continues.
Rail unions are due to stop work for two days from Wednesday, and airport unions have threatened a three-day strike from June 3 as part of a separate dispute.
The CGT has also said it will blockade ports and docks on Thursday and Friday.
All this comes as France prepares to host hundreds of thousands of football fans for the Euro 2016 tournament that kicks off on June 10.
– Total (LSE: 524773.L – news) criticism –
With (Other OTC: WWTH – news) a fifth of the country’s 12,000 petrol stations either dry or low on fuel, President Francois Hollande said a deadlock caused “by a minority” was unacceptable.
The chief executive of Total said the disruption meant the French oil giant would have to “seriously review” its investment plans in France.
“If our colleagues want to take an industrial asset hostage for a cause that is foreign to the company, you have to ask whether that is where we should invest,” Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne told reporters.
Total operates five of the refineries that are affected.
Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls vowed to lift the blockades and called on the CGT to act responsibly.
“To take consumers, our economy, our industry hostage in this way — to continue actions aimed at getting the draft law withdrawn — is not democratic,” Valls said, speaking during a visit to Israel.
– Union defiant –
At dawn on Tuesday, riot police clashed with union activists as they moved in to lift a blockade of the refinery and fuel depots at Fos-sur-Mer, on the Mediterranean coast.
The local police authority said officers had met “significant resistance” and several police and activists had been hurt.
CGT chief Martinez remained defiant.
Most people in France opposed the labour reforms that the union was fighting, he told BFMTV. The prime minister was playing “a dangerous game” trying to set the CGT against the wider population, he said.
But even the left-wing Liberation newspaper appeared to be taken aback by the scale of the union resistance, asking on its front page: “Can the CGT bring the country to a standstill?”
– ‘We can’t work’ –
Petrol rationing was imposed across much of northern France and many motorists were crossing the border to fill up in Belgium.
A few minutes’ drive from France, in Hertain, Belgium, 24-year-old lorry driver Amazigh was grateful for the lifeline.
“Without petrol, we can’t work. Here, I filled up for tomorrow and I can go back to Lille,” the French city just 18 kilometres (11 miles) away.
But Belgium is not safe from the wave of worker unrest itself, with riot police using water cannon to disperse protests against the country’s own proposed labour reforms on Tuesday.
In France, another nationwide day of strikes and demonstrations against the draft law has been called for Thursday.
Opponents of the labour reforms say they are too pro-business and will do little to reduce France’s jobless rate of around 10 percent.
But an International Monetary Fund report has backed the government, arguing the reforms are needed to reduce unemployment.
The government controversially used a special presidential decree to force the legislation through parliament without a vote earlier this month.
It (Other OTC: ITGL – news) still faces a vote in the Senate, the upper house of parliament.
