French President Emmanuel Macron promised that service at the country’s gas stations would soon be back to “normal” as the government began requisitioning some workers at ExxonMobil’s Esso gas stations amid an ongoing strike that is making life difficult for French drivers.
Requisitions allow authorities to order some striking workers at the depots to return to work.
“The question everyone is asking is: When will we return to normal? That will be within the next week,” Macron told France 2 television on Wednesday evening.
The situation has been prompted by “social conflicts in two companies, Exxon and Total, which made big profits” from high oil and gas prices amid the global energy crisis that was aggravated by Russia’s war in Ukraine, he said.
Macron called on the “responsibility” of both the companies’ leadership and workers’ unions.
“If the social dialogue does not work in the coming hours, we will make [more] requisitions,” he said.
French Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne asked the country’s prefects to launch the requisition procedure for Esso’s gas stations two days after a deal was reached between two unions and the company’s leadership over a pay raise, although some staunch unions have rejected the deal and continued the strike.
The government is considering making a similar decision soon regarding Total facilities, depending on the outcome of salary negotiations that began on Wednesday.
Drivers have been forced to wait in long lines to fill up their cars, and many gas stations have temporarily closed while awaiting deliveries.
French government spokesman Olivier Veran said the consequences of the strike have become “unbearable for too many French people.”
“Some people cannot go to work, others can’t take their children to school, go shopping, or some are even unable to access [hospital] treatment,” Veran said.
About 30 percent of France’s gas stations are experiencing temporary shortages, with the Paris area and northern France being the most affected, Borne said.
At one gas station that remained open on Wednesday in Arcueil, in the southern suburbs of Paris, dozens of drivers waited in a long line to seek fuel.
“It will be the same problem again in two days, so it’s hard,” delivery worker Jean Benamou said. “We try to work smart, not drive if it’s not necessary.”
Closed-circuit television camera installer Benjamin Chaussoy said if he cannot get diesel fuel, he would not be able to work.
“If there’s none left, well I’ll hope and try to get back home,” he said. “After that, I don’t know.”
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
RSS