France has told the oil giant TotalEnergies it has a duty to raise wages, as the group’s two-week standoff with striking workers drags on, disrupting petrol supplies and causing a crisis for the government.
Oil depot and refinery strikes at the French group and the US group ExxonMobil have reduced France’s petrol output by more than 60% in recent days, with one in three petrol stations struggling for fuel. Industrial action spread this week to other energy companies including the nuclear power group EDF, where some workers resumed their sporadic industrial action of recent months.
Although the picket line was lifted at a key ExxonMobil refinery at Fos-sur-Mer in the south of France on Thursday afternoon after a pay deal was struck, the leftwing CGT trade union at TotalEnergies voted to continue to blockade five sites across the country.
At the heart of the standoff is anger at the cost of living crisis and rising inflation, as the trade union demands that workers should have a share of oil companies’ high profits.
The government is under fire from political critics for failing to grasp the seriousness of the strike action for higher salaries, which began last month. TotalEnergies’ bumper profits had caused widespread anger, leading to calls for the group to face a windfall tax. The government has consistently refused, taking the line that companies would redistribute their gains among workers voluntarily.
The CGT trade union is seeking an immediate 10% pay rise to help staff struggling with the cost of living, and after a surge in energy prices led to huge profits that allowed the company to pay out an estimated €8bn in dividends and an additional special dividend to investors. Like other major oil companies, TotalEnergies’ profits soared as energy prices rose after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, significantly changed tone on Thursday, saying TotalEnergies had an obligation to raise salaries. He told RTL radio: “If one knows the profits which they made … companies which have the capacity have a duty to raise wages, and Total is one of them”. The French energy minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, said: “Total needs to raise salaries.”
TotalEnergies then told AFP news agency that it would propose a 6% raise for next year, which was below the CGT’s demand for an immediate 10% retroactive to 1 January 2022.
The CGT coordinator at the company, Eric Sellini, responded: “We’re not going to negotiate through the media.”
TotalEnergies also proposed giving an “exceptional bonus” to all its workers worldwide, equivalent to a month’s salary. It invited all trade unions to pay talks which would begin late on Thursday night.
The government pushed on with the rare and controversial measure of ordering certain refinery staff back to work, targeting the picket line at TotalEnergies for the first time at Dunkirk. “Police came to their homes and made them sign a paper ordering that they come work this afternoon from 2pm until 6am tomorrow,” the FO trade union official at the Dunkirk site, Clement Mortier, told AFP news agency. The CGT trade union has launched a legal challenge after several workers were requisitioned at another site in northern France on Wednesday.
The crisis is seen as damaging for the government amid long and angry tailbacks at petrol stations and fears of empty tanks among some workers including care assistants to elderly people, who depend on their cars, as well as hauliers and refrigerated lorries for food deliveries. In northern France, which has been badly affected, some school transport had to stop.
The office of the prime minister, Élisabeth’s Borne, cited a “real economic threat” for much of northern France, which relies heavily on agriculture, fishing and industry.
The CGT trade union said it would push for extending the strike to other sectors, potentially with a broader strike next Tuesday.
