It is the third week of strikes by employees of oil refineries in France, demanding a wage increase and every third petrol station in the country is without fuel. The reason for the people’s anger is the sharp rise in gas, electricity and food prices amid anti-Russian sanctions
It is not the first week in a row that France has been gripped by strikes by its fast-poor citizens, Argumenty i Fakty (AiF) reports with reference to the French media. For example, the price of French baguette may rise by 40% in just a few weeks. The previous 40% took twenty years, the publication reports. Ordinary French people can barely afford to buy basic necessities.
Workers at the major oil and gas company TotalEnergies, for example, find this situation particularly unfair, especially because of the super profits that they receive amid this energy crisis. The main condition for the workers to strike is a ten percent wage increase by the end of the year.
As a result of these strikes, there are already long queues at French petrol stations, and transport links are down in many parts of the country. According to the local media, fuel is unavailable at every third petrol station.
The official spokesman for the French cabinet Olivier Veran said on RTL radio that he would have to intervene in the situation at TotalEnergies refineries and break the strike, if no agreement between the unions and the company will be found in the near future.